Lake Villa, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Lake Villa, 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 Lake Villa 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 Lake Villa — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Lake Villa — the short answer
Lake Villa, Illinois: USDA zone 5b, about 196 days between hard freezes, across 4K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~196
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 4K 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 Lake Villa's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Lake Villa's 196-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Lake Villa
Each reading below is measured for Lake Villa itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLake Villa runs about 196 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredLake Villa 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 Lake Villa is in
Lake Villa sits in the Southeastern Wisconsin Till Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Lake Villa's own centroid rather than borrowed from Lake County.
What Grows in Lake Villa
Every plant below cleared Lake Villa's own zone 5b and its 196-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Lake Villa?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 16; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 13 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 26 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. The tail of the season still works: sixty-day crops into late summer, quick greens after, garlic last of all.
Documented around Lake Villa
Spotted lanternfly documented 24 miles from Lake Villa, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Lake Villa
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Lake Villa. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Hucker Sales & SerUnderground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- Lake Villa Village OfUnderground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- HARBOR BREWING COBrownfields · 600 ft
- Lake Cook Farm Supply CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- Lake Villa Volunteer Fire DeptUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- LAKELAND AUTO BODYBrownfields · 900 ft
- Allendale SchoolUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- Lake Villa Auto ClinicUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- MIDGLEY ESTATE PROPERTYBrownfields · 1700 ft
- Bus GarageUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- R & S LandscapingUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- Pleriak SchoolUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Lake Villa'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 Lake Villa.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Lake Villa
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Lake Villa
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Lake Villa, PFAS runs higher than the national average — 13 sites within ~10 miles of Lake Villa. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Lake Villa
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 Lake Villa average
Your land is one point inside Lake Villa
Everything above resolves to Lake Villa as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 4K 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 Lake Villa Average
Lake Villa Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Lake Villa
- ●One soil character for all of Lake Villa
- ●Frost dates read at Lake Villa's scale: Apr 13 to Oct 26
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lake Villa's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Lake Villa
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Lake Villa, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lake Villa averages can't show:
We read public map data around Lake Villa — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lake Villa average
How we know this about Lake Villa
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 Lake Villa’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 Lake Villa
When does frost risk typically end in Lake Villa?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Lake Villa typically lands around Apr 13, 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 4.
When is the first frost in Lake Villa?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Lake Villa typically arrives around Oct 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 12, so the watching starts about Sep 26 — about 196 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Lake Villa?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Lake Villa sees about 196 frost-free days — roughly Apr 13 through Oct 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 4 to Oct 12, about 161 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Lake Villa?
The federal record around Lake Villa runs heavier than most — 828 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (433), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Lake Villa?
From about Sep 26 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 26 (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 26. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Lake Villa's scale — its 5b band and its 196-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Lake Villa'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 Lake Villa’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Lake Villa's own scale — its own ~196-day season between 28°F freezes, the 4,182 acres it covers and 828 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Lake Villa's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Lake Villa's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 13 and Oct 26 and the ~196-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 828 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Lake Villa, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Lake Villa's boundary and the 4,182 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~196-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Lake Villa's own centroid, the Southeastern Wisconsin Till PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Lake Villalydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Lake Villa's 4,182 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 Lake Villa's 4,182 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Lake Villa you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 4,182 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Lake Villa-wide figureread your own land →