Chicago Heights, Illinois, 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.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Chicago Heights, 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 Chicago Heights 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 Chicago Heights — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Chicago Heights — the short answer
Chicago Heights, Illinois: USDA zone 6a, about 214 days between hard freezes, across 7K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 6
- 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
- ~214
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 7K 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 Chicago Heights's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Chicago Heights's 214-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Chicago Heights
Each reading below is measured for Chicago Heights itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredChicago Heights runs about 214 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
MeasuredChicago Heights 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 Chicago Heights is in
Chicago Heights sits in the Central Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Chicago Heights's own centroid rather than borrowed from Cook County.
What Grows in Chicago Heights
Every plant below cleared Chicago Heights's own zone 6a and its 214-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Chicago Heights?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 6 (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. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Chicago Heights
Spotted lanternfly documented 14 miles from Chicago Heights, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Chicago Heights
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Chicago Heights. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Industrail Fire Equip Co IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- HJ SVCS INCBrownfields · 900 ft
- Zambon JohnUnderground Storage Tanks · 900 ft
- UNIVERSITY OF ILL @CHICAGOBrownfields · 900 ft
- Chicago Heights MPOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- UNIV OF IL @ CHGOBrownfields · 1100 ft
- STAUFFER CHEMICAL CO. (CHICAGO HEIGHTS PLANT)Superfund · 1100 ft
- Art Signs, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- HISPANIC HOUSING DEVELOPMENT CORPBrownfields · 1200 ft
- UNIVERSITY OF IL @ CHICAGOBrownfields · 1300 ft
- Genstar Tile Tex CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- WILLKINS REBUILDER SUPPLYBrownfields · 1400 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Chicago Heights'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 Chicago Heights.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Chicago Heights
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Chicago Heights
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Chicago Heights, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Chicago Heights — PFAS (38 sites) and Superfund (42 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Chicago Heights
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 Chicago Heights average
Your land is one point inside Chicago Heights
Everything above resolves to Chicago Heights as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 7K 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 Chicago Heights Average
Chicago Heights Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Chicago Heights
- ●One soil character for all of Chicago Heights
- ●Frost dates read at Chicago Heights's scale: Apr 6 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Chicago Heights's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Chicago Heights
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Chicago Heights, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Chicago Heights averages can't show:
We read public map data around Chicago Heights — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Chicago Heights average
How we know this about Chicago Heights
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 Chicago Heights’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 Chicago Heights
When does frost risk typically end in Chicago Heights?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Chicago Heights typically lands around Apr 6, 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 27.
When is the first frost in Chicago Heights?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Chicago Heights 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 214 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Chicago Heights?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Chicago Heights sees about 214 frost-free days — roughly Apr 6 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 27 to Oct 23, about 179 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Chicago Heights?
The federal record around Chicago Heights runs heavier than most — 2,231 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,145), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Chicago Heights?
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 Chicago Heights's scale — its 6a band and its 214-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Chicago Heights'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 Chicago Heights’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Chicago Heights's own scale — its own ~214-day season between 28°F freezes, the 6,635 acres it covers and 2,231 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Chicago Heights's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Chicago Heights's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 6 and Nov 6 and the ~214-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 2,231 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Chicago Heights, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Chicago Heights's boundary and the 6,635 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~214-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Chicago Heights's own centroid, the Central Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Chicago Heightslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Chicago Heights's 6,635 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cook County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cook 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 Cook County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Chicago Heights's 6,635 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Chicago Heights you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 6,635 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Chicago Heights-wide figureread your own land →