Addison, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Addison, 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 Addison 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 Addison — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Addison — the short answer
Addison, Illinois: USDA zone 6a, about 213 days between hard freezes, across 6K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~213
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town 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 Addison's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Addison's 213-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Addison
Each reading below is measured for Addison itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredAddison runs about 213 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
MeasuredAddison 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 Addison is in
Addison sits in the Central Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Addison's own centroid rather than borrowed from DuPage County.
What Grows in Addison
Every plant below cleared Addison's own zone 6a and its 213-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Addison?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 8; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 5 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 4 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Addison
Spotted lanternfly documented 11 miles from Addison, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Addison
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Addison. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ADDISONPFAS · 700 ft
- Addison Golf ClubUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- EJECTOR SYSTEMS INCBrownfields · 1900 ft
- TAPE & LABEL GRAPHICS INCBrownfields · 2000 ft
- PEACOCK COLORS INCBrownfields · 2200 ft
- MULTITECH DUVALL PRECISIONBrownfields · 2400 ft
- PLASTISOL PRODUCTS INCBrownfields · 2500 ft
- BEK SYSTEMS INCBrownfields · 2500 ft
- ANTUNES A JBrownfields · 2500 ft
- PERFECTION SERVO HYDRAULICS INCBrownfields · 2600 ft
- TRANSPARENT CONTAINER CO INCBrownfields · 2600 ft
- Iona Glos Specialized Living CtrUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Addison'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 Addison.
Total Sites
5,197
within ~10 miles of Addison
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
31 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Addison
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Addison
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Addison, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 538 sites within ~10 miles of Addison. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Addison
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 Addison average
Your land is one point inside Addison
Everything above resolves to Addison 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 town 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 Addison Average
Addison Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Addison
- ●One soil character for all of Addison
- ●Frost dates read at Addison's scale: Apr 5 to Nov 4
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Addison's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Addison
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Addison, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Addison averages can't show:
We read public map data around Addison — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Addison average
How we know this about Addison
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Addison’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 town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-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 Addison
When does frost risk typically end in Addison?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Addison typically lands around Apr 5, 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 26.
When is the first frost in Addison?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Addison typically arrives around Nov 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 21, so the watching starts about Oct 5 — about 213 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Addison?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Addison sees about 213 frost-free days — roughly Apr 5 through Nov 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 26 to Oct 21, about 178 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Addison?
The federal record around Addison is a meaningful one — 5,197 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (2,380), the nearest PFAS record about 0.1 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 Addison?
From about Oct 5 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 4 (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 4. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Addison's scale — its 6a band and its 213-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Addison'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 Addison’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Addison's own scale — its own ~213-day season between 28°F freezes, the 6,291 acres it covers and 5,197 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Addison's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Addison's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 5 and Nov 4 and the ~213-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 5,197 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Addison, the closest PFAS record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Addison's boundary and the 6,291 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~213-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Addison's own centroid, the Central Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Addisonlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Addison's 6,291 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom DuPage County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom DuPage County
- The growing challenges every Illinois grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Illinois
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom DuPage County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Addison's 6,291 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Addison you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 6,291 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest PFAS 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 Addison-wide figureread your own land →
More in Illinois
Wider growing context
What grows across IllinoisAddison sits outside our named growing regions, so Illinois as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides