Lonoke, Arkansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Lonoke, no two yards are alike.
A low spot, a south-facing slope, or a stand of trees moves the frost date and sun across a single Lonoke lot. Enter your address and we'll score 1,086 plants against your land's actual soil, sun, and frost.
We read public map data around Lonoke — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Lonoke — the short answer
Lonoke, Arkansas: USDA zone 8a, about 272 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 8a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~272
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 3K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are this town’s own 28°F normals: light frosts run a few weeks past them, and tender transplants usually wait 2–3 weeks after the last hard freeze.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 8a is Lonoke's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Lonoke's 272-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Lonoke
Each reading below is measured for Lonoke itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLonoke runs about 272 days between hard freezes — close to year-round growing.
Frost is rarely the limit here; winter plantings are as real as summer ones, and the harder question is which crops shrug off the summer heat.
Grow cool-season crops through the mild winter, and choose heat-tolerant varieties for the summer beds.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredLonoke sits in USDA hardiness zone 8a.
The zone sets which perennials, shrubs, and fruit trees live through an average winter here — a plant rated for a colder zone is a safe bet, one rated warmer needs winter protection or gets treated as an annual.
Match perennials and fruit to the zone before you buy, so nothing you plant is a gamble against the cold.
USDA PHZM 2023
The kind of country Lonoke is in
Lonoke sits in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Lonoke's own centroid rather than borrowed from Lonoke County.
What Grows in Lonoke
Every plant below cleared Lonoke's own zone 8a and its 272-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arkansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Lonoke?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 1 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 28 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With almost year-round growing weather, timing is about heat and rainfall more than frost — some bench is always in play.
What's on the federal record near Lonoke
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Lonoke. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- LONOKE COUNTY FAIRGROUNDSBrownfields · 1800 ft
- LONOKE COUNTY ROAD DEPTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- LONOKE FERTILIZER & CHEMICAL CUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- PONY EXPRESSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- CONOCO SHORT STOP #7Underground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- TOBACCO SUPERSTORE LONOKEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- SOUTHWESTERN BELL TELEPHONEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- LONOKE FOOD MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- SNAK PAK #15Underground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- GIT & GO CONCENIENCEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- LONOKE GAS & DELI LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- AT&T COMMUNICATIONSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Lonoke's center, not your beds. Run your own address for what's upwind of you specifically.
Environmental Intelligence
The counts behind that headline — every source type on the record near Lonoke.
Total Sites
159
within ~10 miles of Lonoke
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Lonoke
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Lonoke
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Lonoke, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 82 sites within ~10 miles of Lonoke. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Lonoke
Get exact proximity distances to contamination sources for your specific parcel — plus soil, sun, drainage, and 1,086 plant recommendations.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lonoke average
Your land is one point inside Lonoke
Everything above resolves to Lonoke as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K acres. Your parcel is one point inside that footprint. Slope, tree cover, a low spot that pools cold air, and what is in the soil are all resolved at the address, and none of them are visible at city scale. That is the honest boundary of this page, and the reason the next step is a reading of your own ground rather than a better local average.
Your Lot vs the Lonoke Average
Lonoke Average
- ●USDA Zones 8a, averaged across Lonoke
- ●One soil character for all of Lonoke
- ●Frost dates read at Lonoke's scale: Mar 1 to Nov 28
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lonoke's 8a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Lonoke
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Lonoke, Arkansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lonoke averages can't show:
We read public map data around Lonoke — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lonoke average
How we know this about Lonoke
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Lonoke’s own record; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Soil is not read at city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-resolution survey in our data, which is why you will find no soil grid here rather than a statewide one wearing a local label. The resolution ledger below names every figure this page inherited.
Common questions about Lonoke
When does frost risk typically end in Lonoke?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Lonoke typically lands around Mar 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — earlier than the light-frost dates most charts quote. That marks the hard freeze, not the last light frost — lighter frosts keep biting past it, which is why tender transplants here wait until about Mar 22.
When is the first frost in Lonoke?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Lonoke typically arrives around Nov 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 14, so the watching starts about Oct 29 — about 272 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Lonoke?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Lonoke sees about 272 frost-free days — roughly Mar 1 through Nov 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 22 to Nov 14, about 237 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Lonoke?
The federal record around Lonoke is a meaningful one — 159 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (82), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.3 miles out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Lonoke?
From about Oct 29 the job here turns from planting to protecting — the last start even a 30-day crop can finish. As the season closes around the first 28°F hard freeze near Nov 28 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals), three moves buy time: row cover or an old sheet over tender plants on still, clear nights; water the soil the afternoon before a freeze, so it holds warmth overnight; and harvest tomatoes, peppers and basil before Nov 28. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Lonoke's scale — its 8a band and its 272-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Lonoke's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
What this page reads at Lonoke’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Lonoke's own scale — its own ~272-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,076 acres it covers and 159 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Lonoke's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Lonoke's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 1 and Nov 28 and the ~272-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 159 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Lonoke, the closest Brownfields record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Lonoke's boundary and the 3,076 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8a and a ~272-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Lonoke's own centroid, the Mississippi Alluvial PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Lonoke's 3,076 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Lonoke County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Lonoke County
- The growing challenges every Arkansas grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Arkansas
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Lonoke County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Lonoke's 3,076 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Lonoke you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,076 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.3 miles out, measured from the town centrehow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — measured at your address, and averaged away by any Lonoke-wide figureread your own land →
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