Mount Ida, Arkansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
The conditions favor cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Mount Ida, 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 Mount Ida 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 Mount Ida — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Mount Ida — the short answer
Mount Ida, Arkansas: USDA zone 7b, about 230 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~230
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 1K 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 7b is Mount Ida's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Mount Ida's 230-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Mount Ida
Each reading below is measured for Mount Ida itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMount Ida runs about 230 days between hard freezes — a long growing season.
There is slack for succession plantings and slow-finishing crops: many vegetables can be sown twice, and the heat-lovers have time to ripen fully.
Plan a second sowing of quick crops after the first comes out, and use the fall window most gardeners let sit idle.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredMount Ida sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b.
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 Mount Ida is in
Mount Ida sits in the Ouachita Mountains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Mount Ida's own centroid rather than borrowed from Montgomery County.
What Grows in Mount Ida
Every plant below cleared Mount Ida's own zone 7b and its 230-day season. Each card opens that plant's Arkansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Mount Ida?
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 21; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 21 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 6 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
What's on the federal record near Mount Ida
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Mount Ida. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- TIGER MART MUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- MONTGOMERY COUNTY SHOP (OLD)Underground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- MOUNT IDA TOTALUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- MOUNT IDA HIGH SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- D & K CONOCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- COLONIAL GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- PHILLIPS 66 COMPANY #009963Underground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- DEVEREUX SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- R.E. SHAPLEYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- ACTION REALTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- STERICYCLE @ MONTGOMERYBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- MONTGOMERY COUNTY SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Mount Ida'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 Mount Ida.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Mount Ida
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Mount Ida
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Mount Ida, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 49 sites within ~10 miles of Mount Ida. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Mount Ida
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 Mount Ida average
Your land is one point inside Mount Ida
Everything above resolves to Mount Ida as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Mount Ida Average
Mount Ida Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Mount Ida
- ●One soil character for all of Mount Ida
- ●Frost dates read at Mount Ida's scale: Mar 21 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Mount Ida's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Mount Ida
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Mount Ida, Arkansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Mount Ida averages can't show:
We read public map data around Mount Ida — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Mount Ida average
How we know this about Mount Ida
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 Mount Ida’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 Mount Ida
When does frost risk typically end in Mount Ida?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Mount Ida typically lands around Mar 21, 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 Apr 11.
When is the first frost in Mount Ida?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Mount Ida typically arrives around Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 23, so the watching starts about Oct 7 — about 230 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Mount Ida?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Mount Ida sees about 230 frost-free days — roughly Mar 21 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 11 to Oct 23, about 195 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Mount Ida?
The federal record around Mount Ida shows 60 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (49), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Mount Ida?
From about Oct 7 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 6 (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 6. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Mount Ida's scale — its 7b band and its 230-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Mount Ida'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 Mount Ida’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Mount Ida's own scale — its own ~230-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,004 acres it covers and 60 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Mount Ida's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Mount Ida's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 21 and Nov 6 and the ~230-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 60 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Mount Ida, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Mount Ida's boundary and the 1,004 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~230-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Mount Ida's own centroid, the Ouachita MountainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Mount Ida's 1,004 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Montgomery County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Montgomery 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 Montgomery County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Mount Ida's 1,004 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Mount Ida you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,004 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Mount Ida-wide figureread your own land →
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