Preston Heights, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — 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, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Preston Heights, 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 Preston Heights 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 Preston Heights — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Preston Heights — the short answer
Preston Heights, Illinois: USDA zone 6a, about 218 days between hard freezes, across 741 acres of town.
- 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 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~218
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 741 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 Preston Heights's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Preston Heights's 218-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Preston Heights
Each reading below is measured for Preston Heights itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPreston Heights 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
MeasuredPreston Heights 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 Preston Heights is in
Preston Heights sits in the Central Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Preston Heights's own centroid rather than borrowed from Will County.
What Grows in Preston Heights
Every plant below cleared Preston Heights'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 Preston Heights?
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 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 7 — 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 Preston Heights
Spotted lanternfly documented 13 miles from Preston Heights, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Preston Heights
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Preston Heights. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Speedway #7455Underground Storage Tanks · 150 ft
- EMRO MARKETING NO 7455Brownfields · 200 ft
- Vulcan Materials CompanyUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- MATHESON TRIGAS INCToxics Release Inventory · 2000 ft
- CREATIVE AUTO INCBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- AMERICAN CYANAMIDE COMPANYSuperfund · 0.6 mi
- AUTO CONCEPTS INCBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- Wilhelmi FieldUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Will Du Page Service CompanyUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- AMERICAN LEAS & FINANCIAL SERV CORPBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- Surrey Group 52, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- CVS PHARMACY #ILJOL1B01Brownfields · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Preston Heights'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 Preston Heights.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Preston Heights
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Preston Heights
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Preston Heights, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Preston Heights — Superfund (20 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (78 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Preston Heights
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 Preston Heights average
Your land is one point inside Preston Heights
Everything above resolves to Preston Heights as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 741 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 Preston Heights Average
Preston Heights Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Preston Heights
- ●One soil character for all of Preston Heights
- ●Frost dates read at Preston Heights's scale: Apr 3 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Preston Heights's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Preston Heights
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Preston Heights, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Preston Heights averages can't show:
We read public map data around Preston Heights — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Preston Heights average
How we know this about Preston Heights
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 Preston Heights’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 Preston Heights
When does frost risk typically end in Preston Heights?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Preston Heights 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 Preston Heights?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Preston Heights typically arrives around Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 24, so the watching starts about Oct 8 — about 218 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Preston Heights?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Preston Heights sees about 218 frost-free days — roughly Apr 3 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 24 to Oct 24, about 183 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Preston Heights?
The federal record around Preston Heights runs heavier than most — 1,082 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (487), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Preston Heights?
From about Oct 8 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 7 (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 7. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Preston Heights's scale — its 6a band and its 218-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Preston Heights'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 Preston Heights’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Preston Heights's own scale — its own ~218-day season between 28°F freezes, the 741 acres it covers and 1,082 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Preston Heights's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Preston Heights's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 3 and Nov 7 and the ~218-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,082 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Preston Heights, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Preston Heights's boundary and the 741 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 Preston Heights's own centroid, the Central Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Preston Heightslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Preston Heights's 741 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 Preston Heights's 741 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Preston Heights you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 741 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 Preston Heights-wide figureread your own land →
More in Illinois
Wider growing context
What grows across IllinoisPreston Heights sits outside our named growing regions, so Illinois as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides