Des Plaines, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, 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 Des Plaines, 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 Des Plaines 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 Des Plaines — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Des Plaines — the short answer
Des Plaines, Illinois: USDA zone 6a, about 214 days between hard freezes, across 9K acres of city.
- 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 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~214
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 9K 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 Des Plaines's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Des Plaines's 214-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Des Plaines
Each reading below is measured for Des Plaines itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredDes Plaines 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
MeasuredDes Plaines 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 Des Plaines is in
Des Plaines sits in the Central Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Des Plaines's own centroid rather than borrowed from Cook County.
What Grows in Des Plaines
Every plant below cleared Des Plaines'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 Des Plaines?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. 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 5 — 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 Des Plaines
Spotted lanternfly documented 11 miles from Des Plaines, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Des Plaines
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Des Plaines. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Midwest AutoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- LEE AUTO BODYBrownfields · 1900 ft
- Susk HondaUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- RELIANCE AUTO BODY INCBrownfields · 2000 ft
- IL0125Underground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- Des Plaines BP @ Lee (SS# 147)Underground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- Des Plaines Lumber & Coal CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- GERBER COLLISION & GLASSBrownfields · 2200 ft
- CONTOUR SAWS INCToxics Release Inventory · 2300 ft
- Oakwood Maintenance CtrUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- HOLIDAY CAR & TRUCK RENTALBrownfields · 2300 ft
- Holiday Car & Truck RentalUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Des Plaines'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 Des Plaines.
Total Sites
5,772
within ~10 miles of Des Plaines
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
32 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Des Plaines
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Des Plaines
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Des Plaines, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 597 sites within ~10 miles of Des Plaines. 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 Des Plaines
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 Des Plaines average
Your land is one point inside Des Plaines
Everything above resolves to Des Plaines as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 9K 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 Des Plaines Average
Des Plaines Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Des Plaines
- ●One soil character for all of Des Plaines
- ●Frost dates read at Des Plaines's scale: Apr 5 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Des Plaines's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Des Plaines
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Des Plaines, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Des Plaines averages can't show:
We read public map data around Des Plaines — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Des Plaines average
How we know this about Des Plaines
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 Des Plaines’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 Des Plaines
When does frost risk typically end in Des Plaines?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Des Plaines 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 Des Plaines?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Des Plaines typically arrives around Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 22, so the watching starts about Oct 6 — about 214 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Des Plaines?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Des Plaines sees about 214 frost-free days — roughly Apr 5 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 26 to Oct 22, about 179 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Des Plaines?
The federal record around Des Plaines is a meaningful one — 5,772 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (2,690), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Des Plaines?
From about Oct 6 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 5 (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 5. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Des Plaines's scale — its 6a band and its 214-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Des Plaines'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 Des Plaines’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Des Plaines's own scale — its own ~214-day season between 28°F freezes, the 9,112 acres it covers and 5,772 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Des Plaines's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Des Plaines's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 5 and Nov 5 and the ~214-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 5,772 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Des Plaines, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Des Plaines's boundary and the 9,112 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 Des Plaines's own centroid, the Central Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Des Plaineslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Des Plaines's 9,112 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 Des Plaines's 9,112 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Des Plaines you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 9,112 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Des Plaines-wide figureread your own land →