Arbury Hills, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Growers here do well with cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Arbury Hills, 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 Arbury Hills 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 Arbury Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Arbury Hills — the short answer
Arbury Hills, Illinois: USDA zone 6a, about 217 days between hard freezes, across 115 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~217
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 115 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 Arbury Hills's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Arbury Hills's 217-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Arbury Hills
Each reading below is measured for Arbury Hills itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredArbury Hills runs about 217 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
MeasuredArbury Hills 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 Arbury Hills is in
Arbury Hills sits in the Central Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Arbury Hills's own centroid rather than borrowed from Will County.
What Grows in Arbury Hills
Every plant below cleared Arbury Hills's own zone 6a and its 217-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Arbury Hills?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 7; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 4 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 7 — 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.
Documented around Arbury Hills
Spotted lanternfly documented 6 miles from Arbury Hills, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Arbury Hills
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Arbury Hills. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- GPB L OGISTICS LLCBrownfields · 350 ft
- Prime Car Care IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- Crawford Supply CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- CLEAN II CLEANERSBrownfields · 1500 ft
- H&H MFG INCBrownfields · 1500 ft
- Safety-Kleen Corp(5-034-05)Underground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- SERVICE KING PAINT & BODY LLCBrownfields · 1800 ft
- M & K Petro Mart, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- Fleckenstein BakeryUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- Normal Plumbing CompanyUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- B & B Construction & Excavating, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- Calumet Screw Machine Prod IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Arbury Hills'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 Arbury Hills.
Total Sites
1,165
within ~10 miles of Arbury Hills
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
8 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Arbury Hills
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Arbury Hills
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Arbury Hills, PFAS runs higher than the national average — 23 sites within ~10 miles of Arbury Hills. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Arbury Hills
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 Arbury Hills average
Your land is one point inside Arbury Hills
Everything above resolves to Arbury Hills as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 115 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 Arbury Hills Average
Arbury Hills Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Arbury Hills
- ●One soil character for all of Arbury Hills
- ●Frost dates read at Arbury Hills's scale: Apr 4 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Arbury Hills's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Arbury Hills
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Arbury Hills, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Arbury Hills averages can't show:
We read public map data around Arbury Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Arbury Hills average
How we know this about Arbury Hills
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 Arbury Hills’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 Arbury Hills
When does frost risk typically end in Arbury Hills?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Arbury Hills typically lands around Apr 4, 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 25.
When is the first frost in Arbury Hills?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Arbury Hills typically arrives around Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 24, so the watching starts about Oct 8 — about 217 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Arbury Hills?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Arbury Hills sees about 217 frost-free days — roughly Apr 4 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 25 to Oct 24, about 182 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Arbury Hills?
The federal record around Arbury Hills is a meaningful one — 1,165 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (559), the nearest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile 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 Arbury Hills?
From about Oct 8 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 7 (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 7. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Arbury Hills's scale — its 6a band and its 217-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Arbury Hills'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 Arbury Hills’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Arbury Hills's own scale — its own ~217-day season between 28°F freezes, the 115 acres it covers and 1,165 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Arbury Hills's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Arbury Hills's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 4 and Nov 7 and the ~217-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,165 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Arbury Hills, the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Arbury Hills's boundary and the 115 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~217-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Arbury Hills's own centroid, the Central Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Arbury Hillslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Arbury Hills's 115 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Will County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Will 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 Will County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Arbury Hills's 115 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Arbury Hills you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 115 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile 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 Arbury Hills-wide figureread your own land →
More in Illinois
Wider growing context
What grows across IllinoisArbury Hills sits outside our named growing regions, so Illinois as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides