Shively, Kentucky, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Shively, 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 Shively 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 Shively — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Shively — the short answer
Shively, Kentucky: USDA zone 7a, about 250 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~250
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 3K 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 Shively's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Shively's 250-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Shively
Each reading below is measured for Shively itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredShively runs about 250 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
MeasuredShively 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 Shively is in
Shively sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Shively's own centroid rather than borrowed from Jefferson County.
What Grows in Shively
Every plant below cleared Shively's own zone 7a and its 250-day season. Each card opens that plant's Kentucky profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Shively?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 17; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 17 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 22 — 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 Shively
Survey cells within 31 miles of Shively checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 60 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Shively
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Shively. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- E16B0350Nitrate · 1200 ft
- P & P 129Underground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- Big FootUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- Parcel 4 (Huber)Underground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- Police DepartmentUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- Hydroforce IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- Police Fire DeptsUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- Speedway #9646Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- Chevron 0048570Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- Deveroes SiteUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- Baumgardner-Hogan IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- Former Swifty Station #22Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Shively'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 Shively.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Shively
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Shively
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Shively, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Shively — Toxics Release Inventory (231 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (1,905 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Shively
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 Shively average
Your land is one point inside Shively
Everything above resolves to Shively as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 Shively Average
Shively Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Shively
- ●One soil character for all of Shively
- ●Frost dates read at Shively's scale: Mar 17 to Nov 22
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Shively's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Shively
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Shively, Kentucky — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Shively averages can't show:
We read public map data around Shively — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Shively average
How we know this about Shively
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 Shively’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 Shively
When does frost risk typically end in Shively?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Shively typically lands around Mar 17, 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 7.
When is the first frost in Shively?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Shively typically arrives around Nov 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 8, so the watching starts about Oct 23 — about 250 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Shively?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Shively sees about 250 frost-free days — roughly Mar 17 through Nov 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 7 to Nov 8, about 215 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Shively?
The federal record around Shively is a meaningful one — 2,846 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,905), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.2 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 Shively?
From about Oct 23 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 22 (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 22. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Shively's scale — its 7a band and its 250-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Shively'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 Shively’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Shively's own scale — its own ~250-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,926 acres it covers and 2,846 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Shively's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Shively's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 17 and Nov 22 and the ~250-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 2,846 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Shively, the closest Nitrate record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Shively's boundary and the 2,926 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~250-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Shively's own centroid, the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Shively 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 Shively's 2,926 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Jefferson County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Jefferson 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 Jefferson County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Shively's 2,926 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Shively you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,926 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate 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 Shively-wide figureread your own land →