Buckner, Kentucky, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
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 Buckner, 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 Buckner 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 Buckner — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Buckner — the short answer
Buckner, Kentucky: USDA zone 6b, about 217 days between hard freezes, across 6K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~217
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 6K 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 Buckner's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Buckner's 217-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Buckner
Each reading below is measured for Buckner itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBuckner runs about 217 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
MeasuredBuckner 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 Buckner is in
Buckner sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Buckner's own centroid rather than borrowed from Oldham County.
What Grows in Buckner
Every plant below cleared Buckner's own zone 6b and its 217-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kentucky profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Buckner?
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 6; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 3 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 6 — 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 Buckner
Survey cells within 31 miles of Buckner checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 37 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Buckner
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Buckner. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Oldham Co Bus GarageUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- Oldham Co Area Vocational CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Shaws GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- East & Westbrook Construction Co IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- RIGO COToxics Release Inventory · 1.0 mi
- Oldham Co Maintenance GarageUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- Buckner ExpressUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- Rigo CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- Us Housing Components IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- The Carriage House Companies IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- Station 47Underground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- THE CARRIAGE HOUSE COMPANIES INCBrownfields · 1.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Buckner'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 Buckner.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Buckner
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Buckner
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Buckner, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Buckner — Superfund (5 sites) and PFAS (3 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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 Buckner
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 Buckner average
Your land is one point inside Buckner
Everything above resolves to Buckner as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 6K 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 Buckner Average
Buckner Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Buckner
- ●One soil character for all of Buckner
- ●Frost dates read at Buckner's scale: Apr 3 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Buckner's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Buckner
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Buckner, Kentucky — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Buckner averages can't show:
We read public map data around Buckner — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Buckner average
How we know this about Buckner
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 Buckner’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 Buckner
When does frost risk typically end in Buckner?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Buckner typically lands around Apr 3, 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 24.
When is the first frost in Buckner?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Buckner typically arrives around Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 23, so the watching starts about Oct 7 — about 217 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Buckner?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Buckner sees about 217 frost-free days — roughly Apr 3 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 24 to Oct 23, about 182 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Buckner?
The federal record around Buckner is a meaningful one — 264 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (175), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 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 Buckner?
From about Oct 7 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 6 (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 6. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Buckner's scale — its 6b band and its 217-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Buckner'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 Buckner’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Buckner's own scale — its own ~217-day season between 28°F freezes, the 5,530 acres it covers and 264 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Buckner's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Buckner's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 3 and Nov 6 and the ~217-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 264 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Buckner, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Buckner's boundary and the 5,530 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~217-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Buckner's own centroid, the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Buckner 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 Buckner's 5,530 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Oldham County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Oldham County
- The growing challenges every Kentucky grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Kentucky
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Oldham County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Buckner's 5,530 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Buckner you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 5,530 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 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 Buckner-wide figureread your own land →
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