The Lakes Region spans USDA hardiness zone 5b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Winnipesaukee's tempering water gives the Lakes Region towns a solid 5b band and 174-191 measured frost-free days — noticeably gentler than the White Mountain country that begins one county north. The conditions favor potato, apple, sugar maple, and blueberry, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
The Lakes Region spans New Hampshire.
Your yard isn't all of the Lakes Region.
The Lakes Region spans USDA zones 5b, but your parcel sits in exactly one — and slope, tree cover, and low spots nudge it further. 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 The Lakes Region — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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The Lakes Region — the short answer
The Lakes Region: USDA zones 5b, 174–191 frost-free days, in New Hampshire.
- USDA zones
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023, aggregated over the footprint
- Frost-free season
- 174–191 days
- NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- Towns
- 6
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Region type
- Town cluster
- Growable Ground growing-region registry
Region boundary: Growable Ground growing-region registry — curated county clusters, EPA Level III ecoregions, and town clusters drawn finer than any county. Where a region publishes no measured season, no season figure is shown.
Hardiness Zone Range
What Grows in the Lakes Region
Plants matched to the Lakes Region's USDA zones 5b, ordered by how much hardiness margin each has across the region — the ones with room to spare at both ends of this band lead. Each links to its full growing profile.
Native Plants of the Lakes Region
Plants the USDA PLANTS Database documents as native and present in this region’s state, kept only where the published hardiness range meets the Lakes Region’s USDA zones 5b — closest range match first. Presence is recorded by state, so a plant can be documented across the state and still be scarce in your corner of the region.
The ground around the Lakes Region
The USDA soil survey maps this ground county by county. These are those records weighted by land area across the two counties containing the Lakes Region — the ground the Lakes Region sits in, read at the only grain the survey publishes.
In the counties containing the Lakes Region, the ground is predominantly Spodosols, at 55% of mapped acres, followed by Inceptisols (32%), Entisols (8%) and Histosols (5%). The most extensive named soils are Becket, Berkshire, and Lyman.
45% of those acres are well drained, and another 15% moderately well drained, 11% somewhat excessively drained. Topsoil pH runs 4.5–4.8 between the lowest and the highest county on record. 2% of the footprint is classed prime farmland.
Soil order
Spodosols
Drainage
Well drained
Topsoil pH
4.5–4.8
Hydric soils
13%
Soil changes across a driveway, so which of these your own ground sits on is a parcel question rather than a regional one. Belknap County holds the most wetland ground here, at 15% — soil types explained.
USDA NRCS SSURGO via Soil Data Access
What this means for growing in the Lakes Region
The soil survey reads this ground county by county, and the readings above are the record for the counties containing the Lakes Region. Here is what they mean for a garden here — and the move an experienced grower makes about each one.
Drainage
From county records45% of the mapped acres across the counties containing the Lakes Region are well drained — ground that drains quickly. The survey maps this ground county-wide, so it describes the setting the Lakes Region sits in rather than the valley floor alone.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
From county recordsTopsoil across the counties containing the Lakes Region runs pH 4.5–4.8 — acidic in all two of them.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across the Lakes Region — and how to grow with it.
Across the 2 counties containing the Lakes Region the federal record holds 1,401 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks (598), Nitrate (558) and Brownfields (192). The heaviest single county is Carroll County, with 737.
That is the containing counties' count — this region is a smaller piece of that ground, so it is context, not a reading of any one lot. Open the map outlined to the Lakes Region to see which records sit where you actually grow.
Sources Checked
Summed across the 2 counties containing the Lakes Region
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around the Lakes Region, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 558 sites across the 2 counties containing the Lakes Region. 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.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
Your land is one point inside the Lakes Region
Everything above resolves to the Lakes Region as a whole — a footprint spanning USDA zones 5b. Your parcel sits in exactly one of them. 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 region 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 regional average.
Your Lot vs the Lakes Region Average
Lakes Region Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Lakes Region
- ●One soil character for all of Lakes Region
- ●State-average frost dates
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lakes Region's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in the Lakes Region
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in the Lakes Region — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, contamination, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lakes Region averages can't show:
We read public map data around The Lakes Region — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lakes Region average
How we know this about the Lakes Region
The boundary: the region's own towns — a footprint finer than any county, because the county average would misread this microclimate. Growing regions have no official boundary, so this footprint is our published one, and every figure on this page was measured over the towns inside it rather than borrowed from the state around it.
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, aggregated across the footprint; the growing season from NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS 1991–2020 28°F normals, read at each member’s own record; boundaries from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination record from the federal sources named in that beat above; the soil from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, read at each member county’s own record and weighted to this footprint by land area. Where a member carries no record of its own, it is absent from the figure rather than filled in.
Common questions about the Lakes Region
What hardiness zone is the Lakes Region?
The Lakes Region spans USDA hardiness zones 5b, aggregated from the USDA Agricultural Research Service Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023 across the region's own towns. Zones reflect average annual extreme minimum temperatures from 1991–2020 data.
How long is the growing season in the Lakes Region?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, the Lakes Region's towns mostly run 179 to 187 frost-free days, median 185 (NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991–2020, over 6 member towns). That 8-day spread is the honest read — no single season describes 6 towns, and each town guide below carries its own.
When does frost risk end in the Lakes Region?
Across the Lakes Region, the middle half of member towns see their last 28°F hard freeze between Apr 20 and Apr 25 (median Apr 21), and their first fall freeze between Oct 21 and Oct 24. Those are hard freezes, not the last light frost: tender transplants wait for about May 12, and elevation decides which end of a 5-day spread you garden in.
What grows well in the Lakes Region?
The Lakes Region's conditions suit plants such as Potato, Apple, Sugar Maple, Blueberry, Lilac. What actually thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage — we score each plant against the real conditions at your address.
How is the Lakes Region defined?
The Lakes Region is a true microclimate — smaller than the counties that contain it, with a growing reality of its own. So this page is built from the region's own 6 towns, each carrying its own hardiness zone and frost record, rather than from a county average measured somewhere else.
Which states does the Lakes Region cover?
The Lakes Region spans New Hampshire. Each state's full growing guide is linked on this page.
What other growing regions cover the same states?
The Upper Valley, White Mountains, Merrimack Valley, New Hampshire Seacoast, and The Monadnock Region share at least one state with the Lakes Region. Growing regions overlap and interlock — a single address can sit inside more than one, which is why the precise read is always the parcel, not the region.
What this page reads at the Lakes Region’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at the Lakes Region's own scale — the zone 5b band across its footprint, a median 185-day season across its 6 towns and 1,401 documented federal contamination records across its 2 counties, 737 of them in Carroll County alone; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- The USDA hardiness band 5b aggregated across all 6 towns in the footprintUSDA PHZM 2023
- The boundary itself — the 6 towns this region is curated fromGrowable Ground subregion registry
- The growing character that makes this region distinct from the states it crossesGrowable Ground subregion registry
- The 28°F season across the footprint — the middle half of its 6 towns run 179 to 187 frost-free days, median 185NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- The federal contamination record over the whole footprint — 1,401 documented federal contamination records across its 2 counties, 737 of them in Carroll County aloneEPA, USGS and USDA federal site records
- The soil order mix across the footprint — 55% Spodosols, topsoil pH 4.5–4.8, area-weighted across its 2 mapped countiesUSDA NRCS SSURGO
Inherited from a wider read
- The candidate plant list — its state's curated sets, merged and filtered to zones 5bfrom New Hampshire
What this page can’t tell you
- Which end of the 8-day range your ground sits at — 179 days at one extreme, 187 at the other, decided mostly by elevationfrost dates explained →
- Which of those soils your own ground sits on — the survey maps them county-wide, and they change across a drivewaysoil types explained →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on one specific lotwhy one lot differs from the next →
Explore the Lakes Region
State growing guides
Towns in this region
Counties containing this region
Other growing regions across New Hampshire
The Connecticut River's bi-state trench from Windsor to Hanover — 5a-5b valley-floor ground on both banks, warmer than the hills that rise from it, and a single growing community that has always ignored the state line.
Spanning Coos, Grafton, and Carroll counties, the White Mountains carry one of New Hampshire's shortest growing seasons — from 145 frost-free days in Coos County up to 162 in Grafton — across USDA hardiness zones 4b to 5b.
New Hampshire's Merrimack River corridor — Concord down through Manchester and Nashua — where the valley floor runs a shade milder (zone 6a at its southern end) than the 5b hills around it, buying growers a little more frost-free room than the uplands nearby.
New Hampshire's Seacoast — Rockingham and Strafford counties — sits in USDA zone 6a and posts the state's two longest frost-free seasons, about 187 to 188 days, roughly two weeks more than the Concord-area interior (Merrimack County, 173 days).
Southwestern New Hampshire around Mount Monadnock and the hub city of Keene — cold zone-5b winters and a roughly 170-day growing season across the hills of Cheshire County.