McLean, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in McLean, 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 McLean 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 McLean — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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McLean — the short answer
McLean, Illinois: USDA zone 6a, about 208 days between hard freezes, across 753 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~208
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 753 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 McLean's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against McLean's 208-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in McLean
Each reading below is measured for McLean itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMcLean runs about 208 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
MeasuredMcLean 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 McLean is in
McLean sits in the Central Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at McLean's own centroid rather than borrowed from McLean County.
What Grows in McLean
Every plant below cleared McLean's own zone 6a and its 208-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in McLean?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 6 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 31 — 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.
What's on the federal record near McLean
Closest first, within ~10 miles of McLean. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- McLean Minit Mart #799Underground Storage Tanks · 350 ft
- Road Ranger #185Underground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- C E Lynch & SonUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- Thomas B BraidUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- Robinson Jr Jerome MUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- OLDCASTLE LAWN & GARDENToxics Release Inventory · 0.6 mi
- 22N 1W-34.6eNitrate · 1.8 mi
- William G. BeelerUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- SEQUEL LAND CO., LLCCAFO · 3.8 mi
- Casey General Stores IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.5 mi
- TREU BODY WORKSBrownfields · 4.7 mi
- DOLLAR GENERAL STORE 11698Brownfields · 4.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from McLean'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 McLean.
Total Sites
62
within ~10 miles of McLean
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
2 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of McLean
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of McLean
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around McLean, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 18 sites within ~10 miles of McLean. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in McLean
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 McLean average
Your land is one point inside McLean
Everything above resolves to McLean as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 753 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 McLean Average
McLean Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across McLean
- ●One soil character for all of McLean
- ●Frost dates read at McLean's scale: Apr 6 to Oct 31
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not McLean's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in McLean
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in McLean, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that McLean averages can't show:
We read public map data around McLean — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the McLean average
How we know this about McLean
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 McLean’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 McLean
When does frost risk typically end in McLean?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in McLean typically lands around Apr 6, 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 27.
When is the first frost in McLean?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in McLean typically arrives around Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 17, so the watching starts about Oct 1 — about 208 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in McLean?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, McLean sees about 208 frost-free days — roughly Apr 6 through Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 27 to Oct 17, about 173 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in McLean?
The federal record around McLean shows 62 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (37), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in McLean?
From about Oct 1 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 31 (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 31. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at McLean's scale — its 6a band and its 208-day season. Your yard writes its own version of McLean'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 McLean’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at McLean's own scale — its own ~208-day season between 28°F freezes, the 753 acres it covers and 62 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- McLean's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- McLean's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 6 and Oct 31 and the ~208-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 62 documented contamination sites on the federal record near McLean, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- McLean's boundary and the 753 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~208-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at McLean's own centroid, the Central Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so McLean's 753 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom McLean County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom McLean 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 McLean County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among McLean's 753 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of McLean you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 753 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 McLean-wide figureread your own land →
More in Illinois
Wider growing context
What grows across IllinoisMcLean sits outside our named growing regions, so Illinois as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides