Lebanon, Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
On paper, cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Lebanon, 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 Lebanon 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 Lebanon — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Lebanon — the short answer
Lebanon, Indiana: USDA zone 6a, about 208 days between hard freezes, across 11K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~208
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 11K 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 Lebanon's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Lebanon's 208-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Lebanon
Each reading below is measured for Lebanon itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLebanon 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
MeasuredLebanon 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 Lebanon is in
Lebanon sits in the Eastern Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Lebanon's own centroid rather than borrowed from Boone County.
What Grows in Lebanon
Every plant below cleared Lebanon's own zone 6a and its 208-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Lebanon?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 11; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 8 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 2 — 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.
Documented around Lebanon
Survey cells within 31 miles of Lebanon checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 48 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Lebanon
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Lebanon. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- LEBANON BPUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- SHELL SERVICE STATION 137342Underground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- AT & TUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- BEARDSLEY EQUIPMENTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- BOONE COUNTY HIGHWAY DEPARTMENTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- IAM ACQUISITIONS, LLCToxics Release Inventory · 1500 ft
- GENE LEWIS FORD INCORPORATEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- LEWIS GENE FORD INCBrownfields · 1700 ft
- BOONE COUNTY HWY DEPTBrownfields · 1700 ft
- Roberts Farm Equipment Company IncorporatedUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- ELECTROCHEMICAL COATINGS, INC.Superfund · 2000 ft
- ELECTROCHEMICAL COATINGS, INC.Toxics Release Inventory · 2000 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Lebanon'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 Lebanon.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Lebanon
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Lebanon
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Lebanon, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Lebanon — Superfund (5 sites) and PFAS (3 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Lebanon
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 Lebanon average
Your land is one point inside Lebanon
Everything above resolves to Lebanon as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 11K 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 Lebanon Average
Lebanon Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Lebanon
- ●One soil character for all of Lebanon
- ●Frost dates read at Lebanon's scale: Apr 8 to Nov 2
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lebanon's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Lebanon
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Lebanon, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lebanon averages can't show:
We read public map data around Lebanon — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lebanon average
How we know this about Lebanon
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 Lebanon’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 Lebanon
When does frost risk typically end in Lebanon?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Lebanon typically lands around Apr 8, 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 29.
When is the first frost in Lebanon?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Lebanon typically arrives around Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 19, so the watching starts about Oct 3 — about 208 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Lebanon?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Lebanon sees about 208 frost-free days — roughly Apr 8 through Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 29 to Oct 19, about 173 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Lebanon?
The federal record around Lebanon runs heavier than most — 222 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (128), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Lebanon?
From about Oct 3 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 2 (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 2. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Lebanon's scale — its 6a band and its 208-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Lebanon'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 Lebanon’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Lebanon's own scale — its own ~208-day season between 28°F freezes, the 11,076 acres it covers and 222 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Lebanon's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Lebanon's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 8 and Nov 2 and the ~208-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 222 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Lebanon, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Lebanon's boundary and the 11,076 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~208-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Lebanon's own centroid, the Eastern Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Lebanon 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 Lebanon's 11,076 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Boone County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Boone 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 Boone County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Lebanon's 11,076 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Lebanon you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 11,076 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 Lebanon-wide figureread your own land →
More in Indiana
Wider growing context
What grows across IndianaLebanon sits outside our named growing regions, so Indiana as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides