New Lenox, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, hazelnut, 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 New Lenox, 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 New Lenox 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 New Lenox — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
New Lenox — the short answer
New Lenox, Illinois: USDA zone 6a, about 218 days between hard freezes, across 10K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~218
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 10K 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 New Lenox's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against New Lenox's 218-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in New Lenox
Each reading below is measured for New Lenox itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredNew Lenox runs about 218 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
MeasuredNew Lenox 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 New Lenox is in
New Lenox sits in the Central Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at New Lenox's own centroid rather than borrowed from Will County.
What Grows in New Lenox
Every plant below cleared New Lenox's own zone 6a and its 218-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in New Lenox?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 7; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 4 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 8 — 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 New Lenox
Spotted lanternfly documented 9 miles from New Lenox, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near New Lenox
Closest first, within ~10 miles of New Lenox. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Oxo Welding Equipment CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- Speedway #5380Underground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- SPEEDWAY LLC 5380Brownfields · 1700 ft
- Zielke DuaneUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- NEW LENOX PUBLIC WELL #4Superfund · 1800 ft
- AMOCO ACA MGMT SVCSBrownfields · 1800 ft
- BP Gas StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- CVS PHARMACY 10889Brownfields · 1800 ft
- OXO WELDING EQUIPMENT CO.Brownfields · 2500 ft
- OXO WELDING EQUIPMENT CO.Toxics Release Inventory · 2500 ft
- CLEAN II CLEANERSBrownfields · 2500 ft
- NEW LENOXPFAS · 2600 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from New Lenox'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 New Lenox.
Total Sites
1,107
within ~10 miles of New Lenox
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
13 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of New Lenox
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of New Lenox
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around New Lenox, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of New Lenox — PFAS (11 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (71 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.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in New Lenox
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 New Lenox average
Your land is one point inside New Lenox
Everything above resolves to New Lenox as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 10K 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 New Lenox Average
New Lenox Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across New Lenox
- ●One soil character for all of New Lenox
- ●Frost dates read at New Lenox's scale: Apr 4 to Nov 8
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not New Lenox's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in New Lenox
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in New Lenox, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that New Lenox averages can't show:
We read public map data around New Lenox — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the New Lenox average
How we know this about New Lenox
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 New Lenox’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 New Lenox
When does frost risk typically end in New Lenox?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in New Lenox typically lands around Apr 4, 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 25.
When is the first frost in New Lenox?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in New Lenox typically arrives around Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 25, so the watching starts about Oct 9 — about 218 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in New Lenox?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, New Lenox sees about 218 frost-free days — roughly Apr 4 through Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 25 to Oct 25, about 183 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in New Lenox?
The federal record around New Lenox is a meaningful one — 1,107 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (492), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 New Lenox?
From about Oct 9 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 8 (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 8. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at New Lenox's scale — its 6a band and its 218-day season. Your yard writes its own version of New Lenox'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 New Lenox’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at New Lenox's own scale — its own ~218-day season between 28°F freezes, the 10,283 acres it covers and 1,107 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- New Lenox's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- New Lenox's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 4 and Nov 8 and the ~218-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,107 documented contamination sites on the federal record near New Lenox, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- New Lenox's boundary and the 10,283 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~218-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at New Lenox's own centroid, the Central Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of New Lenoxlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so New Lenox's 10,283 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Will County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Will 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 Will County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among New Lenox's 10,283 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of New Lenox you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 10,283 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 New Lenox-wide figureread your own land →
More in Illinois
Wider growing context
What grows across IllinoisNew Lenox sits outside our named growing regions, so Illinois as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides