Dover Hill, Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
The conditions favor cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Dover Hill, 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 Dover Hill 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 Dover Hill — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Dover Hill — the short answer
Dover Hill, Indiana: USDA zone 6b, about 208 days between hard freezes, across 497 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~208
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 497 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 6b is Dover Hill's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Dover Hill's 208-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Dover Hill
Each reading below is measured for Dover Hill itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredDover Hill runs about 208 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
MeasuredDover Hill sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Dover Hill is in
Dover Hill sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Dover Hill's own centroid rather than borrowed from Martin County.
What Grows in Dover Hill
Every plant below cleared Dover Hill's own zone 6b and its 208-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Dover Hill?
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 Mar 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 6 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 31 — 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 Dover Hill
Survey cells within 31 miles of Dover Hill checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 100 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Dover Hill
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Dover Hill. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- INDOT SHOALS UNITBrownfields · 2.6 mi
- JONES PHILLIPS 66Underground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- BILL DOBSON FORD L M INCORPORATEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- SHOALS WESTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- SITE BRIDGE REPLACE CONTR B17867Underground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- JEFFERSON TRUCKING COBrownfields · 2.8 mi
- VACANT SITEUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.2 mi
- BEDFORD TRUCKING SHELBY TRUCKINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- HAAS OIL INCORPORATEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- RJS FOOD MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.6 mi
- EARL BOYD JRUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- JAY C FOOD STORE #52Brownfields · 3.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Dover Hill'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 Dover Hill.
Total Sites
60
within ~10 miles of Dover Hill
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Dover Hill
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Dover Hill
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Dover Hill, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Dover Hill — PFAS (3 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (4 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 Dover Hill
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 Dover Hill average
Your land is one point inside Dover Hill
Everything above resolves to Dover Hill as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 497 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 Dover Hill Average
Dover Hill Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Dover Hill
- ●One soil character for all of Dover Hill
- ●Frost dates read at Dover Hill's scale: Apr 6 to Oct 31
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Dover Hill's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Dover Hill
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Dover Hill, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Dover Hill averages can't show:
We read public map data around Dover Hill — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Dover Hill average
How we know this about Dover Hill
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 Dover Hill’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 Dover Hill
When does frost risk typically end in Dover Hill?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Dover Hill typically lands around Apr 6, 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 27.
When is the first frost in Dover Hill?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Dover Hill typically arrives around Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 17, so the watching starts about Oct 1 — about 208 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Dover Hill?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Dover Hill sees about 208 frost-free days — roughly Apr 6 through Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 27 to Oct 17, about 173 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Dover Hill?
The federal record around Dover Hill is a meaningful one — 60 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (38), the nearest Brownfields record about 2.6 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 Dover Hill?
From about Oct 1 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 Oct 31 (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 Oct 31. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Dover Hill's scale — its 6b band and its 208-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Dover Hill'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 Dover Hill’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Dover Hill's own scale — its own ~208-day season between 28°F freezes, the 497 acres it covers and 60 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Dover Hill's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Dover Hill's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 6 and Oct 31 and the ~208-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 60 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Dover Hill, the closest Brownfields record about 2.6 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Dover Hill's boundary and the 497 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~208-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Dover Hill's own centroid, the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Dover Hill 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 Dover Hill's 497 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Martin County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Martin County
- The growing challenges every Indiana grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Indiana
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Martin County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Dover Hill's 497 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Dover Hill you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 497 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 2.6 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 Dover Hill-wide figureread your own land →
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