Palos Hills, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Growers here do well with cabbage, blueberry, lavender, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Palos Hills, 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 Palos Hills 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 Palos Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Palos Hills — the short answer
Palos Hills, Illinois: USDA zone 6a, about 221 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 3
- 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
- ~221
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City 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 6a is Palos Hills's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Palos Hills's 221-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Palos Hills
Each reading below is measured for Palos Hills itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPalos Hills runs about 221 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
MeasuredPalos Hills 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 Palos Hills is in
Palos Hills sits in the Central Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Palos Hills's own centroid rather than borrowed from Cook County.
What Grows in Palos Hills
Every plant below cleared Palos Hills's own zone 6a and its 221-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Palos Hills?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 6; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 3 (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. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Palos Hills
Spotted lanternfly documented 6 miles from Palos Hills, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Palos Hills
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Palos Hills. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- PALOS HILLSPFAS · 0 ft
- Palos Hills City OfUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- Windsor Manor Nursing & Rehab CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- Speedway #7569Underground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- SPEEDWAYBrownfields · 2400 ft
- HILL TOP CLEANERSBrownfields · 2500 ft
- North Palos Fire Protection DistUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- Wallys Service StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- Moraine Valley Comm CollegeUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- NATION FREIGHT INCBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- Jiffy LubeUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- BENEVOLENCE INTERNATIONAL FTDBrownfields · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Palos Hills'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 Palos Hills.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Palos Hills
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Palos Hills
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Palos Hills, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Palos Hills — PFAS (46 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (286 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 Palos Hills
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 Palos Hills average
Your land is one point inside Palos Hills
Everything above resolves to Palos Hills 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 city 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 Palos Hills Average
Palos Hills Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Palos Hills
- ●One soil character for all of Palos Hills
- ●Frost dates read at Palos Hills's scale: Apr 3 to Nov 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Palos Hills's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Palos Hills
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Palos Hills, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Palos Hills averages can't show:
We read public map data around Palos Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Palos Hills average
How we know this about Palos Hills
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Palos Hills’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Palos Hills
When does frost risk typically end in Palos Hills?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Palos Hills typically lands around Apr 3, 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 24.
When is the first frost in Palos Hills?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Palos Hills 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 221 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Palos Hills?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Palos Hills sees about 221 frost-free days — roughly Apr 3 through Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 24 to Oct 27, about 186 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Palos Hills?
The federal record around Palos Hills is a meaningful one — 3,713 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,928), the nearest PFAS record under a tenth of a mile 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 Palos Hills?
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 Palos Hills's scale — its 6a band and its 221-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Palos Hills'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 Palos Hills’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Palos Hills's own scale — its own ~221-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,717 acres it covers and 3,713 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Palos Hills's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Palos Hills's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 3 and Nov 10 and the ~221-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 3,713 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Palos Hills, the closest PFAS record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Palos Hills's boundary and the 2,717 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~221-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Palos Hills's own centroid, the Central Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Palos Hillslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Palos Hills's 2,717 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cook County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cook 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 Cook County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Palos Hills's 2,717 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Palos Hills you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,717 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest PFAS 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 Palos Hills-wide figureread your own land →