Grandwood Park, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
The conditions favor cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Grandwood Park, 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 Grandwood Park 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 Grandwood Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Grandwood Park — the short answer
Grandwood Park, Illinois: USDA zone 5b, about 200 days between hard freezes, across 925 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~200
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 925 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 5b is Grandwood Park's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Grandwood Park's 200-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Grandwood Park
Each reading below is measured for Grandwood Park itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredGrandwood Park runs about 200 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
MeasuredGrandwood Park sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b.
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 Grandwood Park is in
Grandwood Park sits in the Southeastern Wisconsin Till Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Grandwood Park's own centroid rather than borrowed from Lake County.
What Grows in Grandwood Park
Every plant below cleared Grandwood Park's own zone 5b and its 200-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Grandwood Park?
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 15; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 12 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 29 — 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.
Documented around Grandwood Park
Spotted lanternfly documented 20 miles from Grandwood Park, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Grandwood Park
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Grandwood Park. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Grandwood Pk Wasterwtr PlantUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- Grandwood MobilUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- S SpechtUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- HENDERSON JOSEPH & SON INCBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- Lake Villa P @ Route 45 (SS#140)Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- Dalan Development Corp.Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- MARIANOS #523-531Brownfields · 1.0 mi
- HOME DEPOT STORE #1922Brownfields · 1.2 mi
- WALMART SUPERCENTER GURNEE-TREATMENT PLANTBrownfields · 1.3 mi
- TARGET STORE T0865Brownfields · 1.3 mi
- CVS PHARMACY #16303Brownfields · 1.3 mi
- Sam's Club Fuel Station #8184Underground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Grandwood Park'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 Grandwood Park.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Grandwood Park
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Grandwood Park
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Grandwood Park, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Grandwood Park — PFAS (21 sites) and Superfund (23 sites). 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.
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 Grandwood Park
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 Grandwood Park average
Your land is one point inside Grandwood Park
Everything above resolves to Grandwood Park as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 925 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 Grandwood Park Average
Grandwood Park Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Grandwood Park
- ●One soil character for all of Grandwood Park
- ●Frost dates read at Grandwood Park's scale: Apr 12 to Oct 29
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Grandwood Park's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Grandwood Park
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Grandwood Park, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Grandwood Park averages can't show:
We read public map data around Grandwood Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Grandwood Park average
How we know this about Grandwood Park
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 Grandwood Park’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 Grandwood Park
When does frost risk typically end in Grandwood Park?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Grandwood Park typically lands around Apr 12, 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 May 3.
When is the first frost in Grandwood Park?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Grandwood Park typically arrives around Oct 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 15, so the watching starts about Sep 29 — about 200 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Grandwood Park?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Grandwood Park sees about 200 frost-free days — roughly Apr 12 through Oct 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 3 to Oct 15, about 165 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Grandwood Park?
The federal record around Grandwood Park runs heavier than most — 1,474 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (754), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Grandwood Park?
From about Sep 29 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 Oct 29 (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 Oct 29. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Grandwood Park's scale — its 5b band and its 200-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Grandwood Park'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 Grandwood Park’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Grandwood Park's own scale — its own ~200-day season between 28°F freezes, the 925 acres it covers and 1,474 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Grandwood Park's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Grandwood Park's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 12 and Oct 29 and the ~200-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,474 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Grandwood Park, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Grandwood Park's boundary and the 925 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~200-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Grandwood Park's own centroid, the Southeastern Wisconsin Till PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Grandwood Parklydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Grandwood Park's 925 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Lake County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Lake 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 Lake County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Grandwood Park's 925 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Grandwood Park you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 925 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Grandwood Park-wide figureread your own land →