Holiday Shores, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Holiday Shores, 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 Holiday Shores 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 Holiday Shores — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Holiday Shores — the short answer
Holiday Shores, Illinois: USDA zone 6b, about 229 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~229
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 6b is Holiday Shores's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Holiday Shores's 229-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Holiday Shores
Each reading below is measured for Holiday Shores itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredHoliday Shores runs about 229 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
MeasuredHoliday Shores sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Holiday Shores is in
Holiday Shores sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Holiday Shores's own centroid rather than borrowed from Madison County.
What Grows in Holiday Shores
Every plant below cleared Holiday Shores's own zone 6b and its 229-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Holiday Shores?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 26; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 26 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 10 — 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 Holiday Shores
Survey cells within 31 miles of Holiday Shores checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 215 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Holiday Shores
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Holiday Shores. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Pauls PierUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- Behme's MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Midway SchoolUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- MORO PWDPFAS · 2.4 mi
- BETHALTOPFAS · 2.4 mi
- NE CENTRAL COUNTY PUBLIC WATERBrownfields · 3.1 mi
- Mccann Concrete ProductsUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
- Casey's General Stores, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 4.1 mi
- Moro Township ShedUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.4 mi
- ALJETS AUTOMOTIVE INCBrownfields · 4.6 mi
- Aljets AutomotiveUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.6 mi
- Guillo RichardUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Holiday Shores'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 Holiday Shores.
Total Sites
357
within ~10 miles of Holiday Shores
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Holiday Shores
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Holiday Shores
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Holiday Shores, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Holiday Shores — PFAS (8 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (222 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Holiday Shores
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 Holiday Shores average
Your land is one point inside Holiday Shores
Everything above resolves to Holiday Shores as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Holiday Shores Average
Holiday Shores Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Holiday Shores
- ●One soil character for all of Holiday Shores
- ●Frost dates read at Holiday Shores's scale: Mar 26 to Nov 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Holiday Shores's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Holiday Shores
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Holiday Shores, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Holiday Shores averages can't show:
We read public map data around Holiday Shores — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Holiday Shores average
How we know this about Holiday Shores
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 Holiday Shores’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 Holiday Shores
When does frost risk typically end in Holiday Shores?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Holiday Shores typically lands around Mar 26, 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 16.
When is the first frost in Holiday Shores?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Holiday Shores typically arrives around Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 27, so the watching starts about Oct 11 — about 229 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Holiday Shores?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Holiday Shores sees about 229 frost-free days — roughly Mar 26 through Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 16 to Oct 27, about 194 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Holiday Shores?
The federal record around Holiday Shores is a meaningful one — 357 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (222), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 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 Holiday Shores?
From about Oct 11 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 10 (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 10. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Holiday Shores's scale — its 6b band and its 229-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Holiday Shores'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 Holiday Shores’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Holiday Shores's own scale — its own ~229-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,012 acres it covers and 357 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Holiday Shores's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Holiday Shores's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 26 and Nov 10 and the ~229-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 357 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Holiday Shores, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Holiday Shores's boundary and the 1,012 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~229-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Holiday Shores's own centroid, the Interior River Valleys and HillsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Holiday Shores checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Holiday Shores's 1,012 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Madison County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Madison 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 Madison County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Holiday Shores's 1,012 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Holiday Shores you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,012 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 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 Holiday Shores-wide figureread your own land →
More in Illinois
Wider growing context
What grows across IllinoisHoliday Shores sits outside our named growing regions, so Illinois as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides