Lane, Kansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Lane, 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 Lane 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 Lane — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Lane — the short answer
Lane, Kansas: USDA zone 6b, about 218 days between hard freezes, across 149 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~218
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 149 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 Lane's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Lane's 218-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Lane
Each reading below is measured for Lane itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLane runs about 218 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
MeasuredLane 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 Lane is in
Lane sits in the Central Irregular Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Lane's own centroid rather than borrowed from Franklin County.
What Grows in Lane
Every plant below cleared Lane's own zone 6b and its 218-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Lane?
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 3; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 31 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 4 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Lane
Survey cells within 31 miles of Lane checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 428 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Lane
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Lane. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SNOW INCBrownfields · 700 ft
- 18S 21E 35CAA 01Nitrate · 1.3 mi
- TAYLOR FORGE ENGR SYSBrownfields · 3.1 mi
- BURKDOLL BROTHERS INCCAFO · 4.0 mi
- 18S 21E 13BAA 01Nitrate · 4.2 mi
- 19S 21E 23CCC 01Nitrate · 4.5 mi
- THOMAS, FREEMAN J.Underground Storage Tanks · 5.3 mi
- R&R EQUIPMENT INCBrownfields · 5.6 mi
- MFA OIL COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.6 mi
- DONOHUE TRUCKING SVC INCBrownfields · 5.7 mi
- OSAWATOMIE, CITY OFPFAS · 5.8 mi
- 19S 21E 29CCCB01Nitrate · 5.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Lane'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 Lane.
Total Sites
80
within ~10 miles of Lane
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Lane
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Lane
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Lane, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 36 sites within ~10 miles of Lane. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Lane
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 Lane average
Your land is one point inside Lane
Everything above resolves to Lane as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 149 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 Lane Average
Lane Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Lane
- ●One soil character for all of Lane
- ●Frost dates read at Lane's scale: Mar 31 to Nov 4
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lane's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Lane
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Lane, Kansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lane averages can't show:
We read public map data around Lane — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lane average
How we know this about Lane
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 Lane’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 Lane
When does frost risk typically end in Lane?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Lane typically lands around Mar 31, 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 21.
When is the first frost in Lane?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Lane typically arrives around Nov 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 21, so the watching starts about Oct 5 — about 218 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Lane?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Lane sees about 218 frost-free days — roughly Mar 31 through Nov 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 21 to Oct 21, about 183 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Lane?
The federal record around Lane is a meaningful one — 80 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (36), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.1 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 Lane?
From about Oct 5 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 4 (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 4. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Lane's scale — its 6b band and its 218-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Lane'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 Lane’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Lane's own scale — its own ~218-day season between 28°F freezes, the 149 acres it covers and 80 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Lane's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Lane's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 31 and Nov 4 and the ~218-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 80 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Lane, the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Lane's boundary and the 149 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~218-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Lane's own centroid, the Central Irregular PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Lane 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 Lane's 149 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Franklin County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Franklin 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 Franklin County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Lane's 149 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Lane you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 149 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 Lane-wide figureread your own land →
More in Kansas
Wider growing context
What grows across KansasLane sits outside our named growing regions, so Kansas as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides