Creve Coeur, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
On paper, cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Creve Coeur, 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 Creve Coeur 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 Creve Coeur — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Creve Coeur — the short answer
Creve Coeur, Illinois: USDA zone 6a, about 211 days between hard freezes, across 3K 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 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~211
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 3K 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 Creve Coeur's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Creve Coeur's 211-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Creve Coeur
Each reading below is measured for Creve Coeur itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCreve Coeur runs about 211 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
MeasuredCreve Coeur 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 Creve Coeur is in
Creve Coeur sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Creve Coeur's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Tazewell County is mostly Central Corn Belt Plains. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Creve Coeur
Every plant below cleared Creve Coeur's own zone 6a and its 211-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Creve Coeur?
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 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 2 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
What's on the federal record near Creve Coeur
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Creve Coeur. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- G B OilUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- Thorntons #350Underground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- A & D Business Solutions Il WCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- CREVE COEURPFAS · 1500 ft
- Sandhu Gas Stop, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- Wessos Auto RanchUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- Creve Coeur Mobile EstatesUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- Convenient Food Mart #555Underground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- Norm Autoclinic-Norman A BaderUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- DOLLAR GENERAL STORE 11732Brownfields · 0.5 mi
- Village of Creve CoeurUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Trantham CarlUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Creve Coeur'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 Creve Coeur.
Total Sites
1,196
within ~10 miles of Creve Coeur
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
8 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Creve Coeur
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Creve Coeur
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.
- •TRI facilities report what they release. Check the wind — downwind beds catch more of it.
Check your specific parcel in Creve Coeur
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 Creve Coeur average
Your land is one point inside Creve Coeur
Everything above resolves to Creve Coeur as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 Creve Coeur Average
Creve Coeur Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Creve Coeur
- ●One soil character for all of Creve Coeur
- ●Frost dates read at Creve Coeur's scale: Apr 5 to Nov 2
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Creve Coeur's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Creve Coeur
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Creve Coeur, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Creve Coeur averages can't show:
We read public map data around Creve Coeur — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Creve Coeur average
How we know this about Creve Coeur
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 Creve Coeur’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 Creve Coeur
When does frost risk typically end in Creve Coeur?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Creve Coeur 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 Creve Coeur?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Creve Coeur typically arrives around Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 19, so the watching starts about Oct 3 — about 211 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Creve Coeur?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Creve Coeur sees about 211 frost-free days — roughly Apr 5 through Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 26 to Oct 19, about 176 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Creve Coeur?
The federal record around Creve Coeur is a meaningful one — 1,196 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (709), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Creve Coeur?
From about Oct 3 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 2 (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 2. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Creve Coeur's scale — its 6a band and its 211-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Creve Coeur'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 Creve Coeur’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Creve Coeur's own scale — its own ~211-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,708 acres it covers and 1,196 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Creve Coeur's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Creve Coeur's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 5 and Nov 2 and the ~211-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,196 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Creve Coeur, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Creve Coeur's boundary and the 2,708 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~211-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Creve Coeur sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Creve Coeur's 2,708 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Tazewell County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Tazewell 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 Tazewell County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Creve Coeur's 2,708 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Creve Coeur you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,708 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 Creve Coeur-wide figureread your own land →
More in Illinois
Wider growing context
What grows across IllinoisCreve Coeur sits outside our named growing regions, so Illinois as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides