Crestline, Kansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
The conditions favor cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Crestline, 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 Crestline 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 Crestline — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Crestline — the short answer
Crestline, Kansas: USDA zone 7a, about 230 days between hard freezes, across 1K 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 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~230
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 Crestline's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Crestline's 230-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Crestline
Each reading below is measured for Crestline itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCrestline runs about 230 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
MeasuredCrestline 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 Crestline is in
Crestline sits in the Central Irregular Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Crestline's own centroid rather than borrowed from Cherokee County.
What Grows in Crestline
Every plant below cleared Crestline's own zone 7a and its 230-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Crestline?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. 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 10 — 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 Crestline
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Crestline. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 33S 25E 18DAA 01 CHEROKEE CO RWD1Nitrate · 400 ft
- 33S 25E 18DAA 01Nitrate · 750 ft
- 33S 25E 18DAB 01Nitrate · 1400 ft
- Crestline and Badger - Peacock DistrictMining · 3.1 mi
- PBI GORDON CORPBrownfields · 3.6 mi
- PBI/GORDON CORP JAYHAWK FACILITYToxics Release Inventory · 3.8 mi
- 33S 25E 34CCC 01Nitrate · 4.0 mi
- JAYHAWK FINE CHEMICALS CORP.Toxics Release Inventory · 4.0 mi
- JAYHAWK FINE CHEMICALS CORP.Brownfields · 4.0 mi
- 34S 25E 04ABD 01Nitrate · 4.0 mi
- 34S 25E 06 01Nitrate · 4.0 mi
- 34S 25E 04ABA 01 JAYHAWK FINE CHEMICALSNitrate · 4.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Crestline'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 Crestline.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Crestline
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Crestline
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Crestline, Mining runs higher than the national average — 568 sites within ~10 miles of Crestline. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Crestline
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 Crestline average
Your land is one point inside Crestline
Everything above resolves to Crestline as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Crestline Average
Crestline Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Crestline
- ●One soil character for all of Crestline
- ●Frost dates read at Crestline's scale: Mar 25 to Nov 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Crestline's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Crestline
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Crestline, Kansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Crestline averages can't show:
We read public map data around Crestline — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Crestline average
How we know this about Crestline
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 Crestline’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 Crestline
When does frost risk typically end in Crestline?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Crestline 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 Crestline?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Crestline typically arrives around Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 27, so the watching starts about Oct 11 — about 230 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Crestline?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Crestline sees about 230 frost-free days — roughly Mar 25 through Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 15 to Oct 27, about 195 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Crestline?
The federal record around Crestline runs heavier than most — 823 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (568), the nearest Nitrate 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 Crestline?
From about Oct 11 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 10 (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 10. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Crestline's scale — its 7a band and its 230-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Crestline'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 Crestline’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Crestline's own scale — its own ~230-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,140 acres it covers and 823 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Crestline's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Crestline's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 25 and Nov 10 and the ~230-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 823 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Crestline, the closest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Crestline's boundary and the 1,140 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~230-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Crestline's own centroid, the Central Irregular PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Crestline's 1,140 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cherokee County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cherokee County
- The growing challenges every Kansas grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Kansas
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Cherokee County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Crestline's 1,140 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Crestline you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,140 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate 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 Crestline-wide figureread your own land →