Vienna, Illinois, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
On paper, cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Vienna, 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 Vienna 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 Vienna — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Vienna — the short answer
Vienna, Illinois: USDA zone 7a, about 235 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 23
- 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
- ~235
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 2K 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 Vienna's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Vienna's 235-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Vienna
Each reading below is measured for Vienna itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredVienna runs about 235 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
MeasuredVienna 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 Vienna is in
Vienna sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Vienna's own centroid rather than borrowed from Johnson County.
What Grows in Vienna
Every plant below cleared Vienna's own zone 7a and its 235-day season. Each card opens that plant's Illinois profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Vienna?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 23; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 23 (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. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
What's on the federal record near Vienna
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Vienna. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Thomas LiquorUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- ROC One Stop #11Underground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- ROC 1 Stop #12Underground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- Casey's General Store #2373Underground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- AceesUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- DOLLAR GENERAL STORE 1129Brownfields · 0.5 mi
- LAKE OF EGYPT PWDPFAS · 0.5 mi
- MILLSTONE PWDPFAS · 0.5 mi
- Vienna Public School Dist 55Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Hudges Robert OUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Standard Oil Div Amoco Oil CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- Thomas Liquor & GasUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Vienna'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 Vienna.
Total Sites
55
within ~10 miles of Vienna
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 mining site (prospects, none worked)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Vienna
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Vienna
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Vienna, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 40 sites within ~10 miles of Vienna. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Vienna
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 Vienna average
Your land is one point inside Vienna
Everything above resolves to Vienna as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 Vienna Average
Vienna Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Vienna
- ●One soil character for all of Vienna
- ●Frost dates read at Vienna's scale: Mar 23 to Nov 13
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Vienna's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Vienna
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Vienna, Illinois — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Vienna averages can't show:
We read public map data around Vienna — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Vienna average
How we know this about Vienna
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 Vienna’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 Vienna
When does frost risk typically end in Vienna?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Vienna typically lands around Mar 23, 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 13.
When is the first frost in Vienna?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Vienna 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 235 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Vienna?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Vienna sees about 235 frost-free days — roughly Mar 23 through Nov 13, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 13 to Oct 30, about 200 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Vienna?
The federal record around Vienna shows 55 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (40), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles 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 Vienna?
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 Vienna's scale — its 7a band and its 235-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Vienna'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 Vienna’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Vienna's own scale — its own ~235-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,816 acres it covers and 55 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Vienna's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Vienna's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 23 and Nov 13 and the ~235-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 55 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Vienna, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Vienna's boundary and the 1,816 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~235-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Vienna's own centroid, the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Vienna's 1,816 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Johnson County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Johnson 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 Johnson County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Vienna's 1,816 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Vienna you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,816 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 Vienna-wide figureread your own land →