Waterville, Kansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Growers here do well with cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Waterville, 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 Waterville 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 Waterville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Waterville — the short answer
Waterville, Kansas: USDA zone 6a, about 200 days between hard freezes, across 315 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~200
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 315 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 Waterville's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Waterville's 200-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Waterville
Each reading below is measured for Waterville itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredWaterville runs about 200 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
MeasuredWaterville 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 Waterville is in
Waterville sits in the Flint Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. That is read at Waterville's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Marshall County is mostly Western Corn Belt Plains. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Waterville
Every plant below cleared Waterville's own zone 6a and its 200-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kansas profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Waterville?
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 10; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 7 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 24 — 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.
What's on the federal record near Waterville
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Waterville. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- DANES AUTOMOTIVEBrownfields · 350 ft
- TITAN TRAILER MFG. INC.Toxics Release Inventory · 650 ft
- FARMERS SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- UNION PACIFIC - WATERVILLEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- TONY MANNUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- ROUTE 77 CORNER STORE 2Underground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- WATERVILLE MOTOR COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- TRAVALONG TRAILER MFG.Toxics Release Inventory · 1700 ft
- 04S 06E 16DAD 01Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- 04S 06E 16DAC 03Nitrate · 0.8 mi
- 04S 06E 16DAC 01Nitrate · 0.8 mi
- 04S 06E 16DAC 02Nitrate · 0.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Waterville'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 Waterville.
Total Sites
59
within ~10 miles of Waterville
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
6 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Waterville
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Waterville
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Waterville, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Waterville — Nitrate (36 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (6 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Waterville
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 Waterville average
Your land is one point inside Waterville
Everything above resolves to Waterville as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 315 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 Waterville Average
Waterville Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Waterville
- ●One soil character for all of Waterville
- ●Frost dates read at Waterville's scale: Apr 7 to Oct 24
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Waterville's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Waterville
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Waterville, Kansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Waterville averages can't show:
We read public map data around Waterville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Waterville average
How we know this about Waterville
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 Waterville’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 Waterville
When does frost risk typically end in Waterville?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Waterville typically lands around Apr 7, 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 28.
When is the first frost in Waterville?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Waterville typically arrives around Oct 24, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 10, so the watching starts about Sep 24 — about 200 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Waterville?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Waterville sees about 200 frost-free days — roughly Apr 7 through Oct 24, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 28 to Oct 10, about 165 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Waterville?
The federal record around Waterville shows 59 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (36), the nearest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile 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 Waterville?
From about Sep 24 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 24 (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 24. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Waterville's scale — its 6a band and its 200-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Waterville'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 Waterville’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Waterville's own scale — its own ~200-day season between 28°F freezes, the 315 acres it covers and 59 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Waterville's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Waterville's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 7 and Oct 24 and the ~200-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 59 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Waterville, the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Waterville's boundary and the 315 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~200-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Waterville sits in the Flint Hills — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Waterville's 315 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Marshall County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Marshall 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 Marshall County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Waterville's 315 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Waterville you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 315 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 Waterville-wide figureread your own land →
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