Hopkins Park, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, blueberry, 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 Hopkins 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 Hopkins 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 Hopkins Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Hopkins Park — the short answer
Hopkins Park, Illinois: USDA zone 5b, about 205 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~205
- 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 5b is Hopkins Park's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Hopkins Park's 205-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Hopkins Park
Each reading below is measured for Hopkins Park itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredHopkins Park runs about 205 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
MeasuredHopkins 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 Hopkins Park is in
Hopkins Park sits in the Central Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Hopkins Park's own centroid rather than borrowed from Kankakee County.
What Grows in Hopkins Park
Every plant below cleared Hopkins Park's own zone 5b and its 205-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Hopkins Park?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 10 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 1 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Hopkins Park
Survey cells within 31 miles of Hopkins Park checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 41 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Hopkins Park
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Hopkins Park. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Pembroke School Dist #259Underground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- 4-Way Gas UBOUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- Jones TexacoUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- Pembroke CitgoUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- King and Central GasUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- 30N11W-26.8dNitrate · 1.5 mi
- CROSS BROTHERS PAIL RECYCLING (PEMBROKE)Superfund · 1.7 mi
- 30N11W-29.8bNitrate · 2.0 mi
- PEMBROKE ROADSIDE ASBESTOSSuperfund · 2.2 mi
- 4 miles NE of St. AnneNitrate · 2.3 mi
- ABANDONED DRUMS 17000E ROAD SITESuperfund · 3.6 mi
- 29N11W-6.7bNitrate · 3.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Hopkins 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 Hopkins Park.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Hopkins Park
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Hopkins Park
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Hopkins Park, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Hopkins Park — Superfund (5 sites) and Nitrate (54 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Hopkins 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 Hopkins Park average
Your land is one point inside Hopkins Park
Everything above resolves to Hopkins Park 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 Hopkins Park Average
Hopkins Park Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Hopkins Park
- ●One soil character for all of Hopkins Park
- ●Frost dates read at Hopkins Park's scale: Apr 10 to Nov 1
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Hopkins Park's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Hopkins Park
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Hopkins Park, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Hopkins Park averages can't show:
We read public map data around Hopkins Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Hopkins Park average
How we know this about Hopkins 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 Hopkins 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 Hopkins Park
When does frost risk typically end in Hopkins Park?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Hopkins Park typically lands around Apr 10, 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 1.
When is the first frost in Hopkins Park?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Hopkins Park typically arrives around Nov 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 18, so the watching starts about Oct 2 — about 205 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Hopkins Park?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Hopkins Park sees about 205 frost-free days — roughly Apr 10 through Nov 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 1 to Oct 18, about 170 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Hopkins Park?
The federal record around Hopkins Park is a meaningful one — 143 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (60), 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 Hopkins Park?
From about Oct 2 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 1 (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 1. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Hopkins Park's scale — its 5b band and its 205-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Hopkins 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 Hopkins Park’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Hopkins Park's own scale — its own ~205-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,691 acres it covers and 143 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Hopkins Park's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Hopkins Park's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 10 and Nov 1 and the ~205-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 143 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Hopkins Park, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Hopkins Park's boundary and the 2,691 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~205-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Hopkins Park's own centroid, the Central Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Hopkins Park 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 Hopkins Park's 2,691 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Kankakee County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Kankakee 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 Kankakee County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Hopkins Park's 2,691 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Hopkins 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 2,691 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 Hopkins Park-wide figureread your own land →
More in Illinois
Wider growing context
What grows across IllinoisHopkins Park sits outside our named growing regions, so Illinois as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides