Roxana, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Roxana, 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 Roxana 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 Roxana — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Roxana — the short answer
Roxana, Illinois: USDA zone 7a, about 233 days between hard freezes, across 5K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~233
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 5K 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 7a is Roxana's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Roxana's 233-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Roxana
Each reading below is measured for Roxana itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredRoxana runs about 233 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
MeasuredRoxana sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Roxana is in
Roxana sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Roxana's own centroid rather than borrowed from Madison County.
What Grows in Roxana
Every plant below cleared Roxana's own zone 7a and its 233-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Roxana?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 25; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 25 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 13 — 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 Roxana
Survey cells within 31 miles of Roxana checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 225 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Roxana
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Roxana. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Cardox CorpUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- Cbw Transport Ser IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- DAYTON FREIGHT LINES R17618 - SPILL SITEBrownfields · 2000 ft
- GEMINI INDUSTRIES INCBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- M & M Service Company - RoxanaUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Wanda Cemetery IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- DYNAMIC ENVIRO INCBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- United Parcel SerUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- ODESCO INDUSTRIESBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- South Roxana Elementary SchoolUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- AIRGAS ROXANA - WOODRIVER, IL CO2 PLANTToxics Release Inventory · 0.9 mi
- AIRGAS USA LLCToxics Release Inventory · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Roxana'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 Roxana.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Roxana
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Roxana
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Roxana, PFAS runs higher than the national average — 9 sites within ~10 miles of Roxana. 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 Roxana
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 Roxana average
Your land is one point inside Roxana
Everything above resolves to Roxana as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 5K 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 Roxana Average
Roxana Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Roxana
- ●One soil character for all of Roxana
- ●Frost dates read at Roxana's scale: Mar 25 to Nov 13
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Roxana's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Roxana
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Roxana, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Roxana averages can't show:
We read public map data around Roxana — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Roxana average
How we know this about Roxana
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 Roxana’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 Roxana
When does frost risk typically end in Roxana?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Roxana typically lands around Mar 25, 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 15.
When is the first frost in Roxana?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Roxana typically arrives around Nov 13, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 30, so the watching starts about Oct 14 — about 233 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Roxana?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Roxana sees about 233 frost-free days — roughly Mar 25 through Nov 13, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 15 to Oct 30, about 198 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Roxana?
The federal record around Roxana runs heavier than most — 906 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (498), 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 Roxana?
From about Oct 14 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 13 (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 13. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Roxana's scale — its 7a band and its 233-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Roxana'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 Roxana’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Roxana's own scale — its own ~233-day season between 28°F freezes, the 4,573 acres it covers and 906 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Roxana's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Roxana's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 25 and Nov 13 and the ~233-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 906 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Roxana, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Roxana's boundary and the 4,573 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~233-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Roxana's own centroid, the Interior River Valleys and HillsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Roxana checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Roxana's 4,573 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Madison County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Madison 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 Madison County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Roxana's 4,573 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Roxana you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 4,573 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 Roxana-wide figureread your own land →
More in Illinois
Wider growing context
What grows across IllinoisRoxana sits outside our named growing regions, so Illinois as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides