Lone Tree, Colorado, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, blackberry, california poppy, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Lone Tree, 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 Lone Tree 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 Lone Tree — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Lone Tree — the short answer
Lone Tree, Colorado: USDA zone 6a, about 170 days between hard freezes, across 6K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~170
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 6K 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 6a is Lone Tree's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Lone Tree's 170-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Lone Tree
Each reading below is measured for Lone Tree itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLone Tree runs about 170 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredLone Tree sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
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 Lone Tree is in
Lone Tree sits in the High Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Lone Tree's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Douglas County is mostly Southwestern Tablelands. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Lone Tree
Every plant below cleared Lone Tree's own zone 6a and its 170-day season. Each card opens that plant's Colorado profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Lone Tree?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 31; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 28 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 15 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Even past midsummer there is room for a true fall garden here, and garlic planted near the close carries the momentum into next year.
What's on the federal record near Lone Tree
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Lone Tree. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SKY RIDGE MEDICAL CENTERBrownfields · 650 ft
- Sky Ridge HospitalUnderground Storage Tanks · 650 ft
- WALGREENS STORE #16569Brownfields · 1000 ft
- SKY RIDGE SURGERY CENTERBrownfields · 1100 ft
- RIDGE VIEW ENDOSCOPY CENTERBrownfields · 1100 ft
- COLORADO CENTER FOR REPRODUCTIVE MEDICINEBrownfields · 1400 ft
- PARK RIDGE SURGERY CENTERBrownfields · 2600 ft
- CABELA'S STORE #047Brownfields · 0.5 mi
- LONE TREE DENTISTSBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- CVS PHARMACY #17116Brownfields · 0.7 mi
- TARGET STORE #T2023Brownfields · 0.7 mi
- ALTITUDE SURGERY CENTERBrownfields · 0.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Lone Tree'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 Lone Tree.
Total Sites
1,399
within ~10 miles of Lone Tree
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
5 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Lone Tree
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Lone Tree
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in Lone Tree
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 Lone Tree average
Your land is one point inside Lone Tree
Everything above resolves to Lone Tree as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 6K 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 Lone Tree Average
Lone Tree Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Lone Tree
- ●One soil character for all of Lone Tree
- ●Frost dates read at Lone Tree's scale: Apr 28 to Oct 15
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lone Tree's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Lone Tree
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Lone Tree, Colorado — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lone Tree averages can't show:
We read public map data around Lone Tree — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lone Tree average
How we know this about Lone Tree
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 Lone Tree’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 Lone Tree
When does frost risk typically end in Lone Tree?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Lone Tree typically lands around Apr 28, 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 May 19.
When is the first frost in Lone Tree?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Lone Tree typically arrives around Oct 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 1, so the watching starts about Sep 15 — about 170 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Lone Tree?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Lone Tree sees about 170 frost-free days — roughly Apr 28 through Oct 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 19 to Oct 1, about 135 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Lone Tree?
The federal record around Lone Tree runs heavier than most — 1,399 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (618), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.1 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Lone Tree?
From about Sep 15 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 Oct 15 (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 Oct 15. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Lone Tree's scale — its 6a band and its 170-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Lone Tree'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 Lone Tree’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Lone Tree's own scale — its own ~170-day season between 28°F freezes, the 6,278 acres it covers and 1,399 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Lone Tree's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Lone Tree's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 28 and Oct 15 and the ~170-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,399 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Lone Tree, the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Lone Tree's boundary and the 6,278 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~170-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Lone Tree sits in the High Plains — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Lone Tree's 6,278 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Douglas County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Douglas County
- The growing challenges every Colorado grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Colorado
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Douglas County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Lone Tree's 6,278 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Lone Tree you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 6,278 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 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 Lone Tree-wide figureread your own land →