Lake Arrowhead, Maine, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Lake Arrowhead, 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 Lake Arrowhead 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 Lake Arrowhead — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Lake Arrowhead — the short answer
Lake Arrowhead, Maine: USDA zone 5a, about 162 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 5a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- May 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~162
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town 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 5a is Lake Arrowhead's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Lake Arrowhead's 162-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Lake Arrowhead
Each reading below is measured for Lake Arrowhead itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLake Arrowhead runs about 162 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredLake Arrowhead sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a.
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 Lake Arrowhead is in
Lake Arrowhead sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Lake Arrowhead's own centroid rather than borrowed from York County.
What Grows in Lake Arrowhead
Every plant below cleared Lake Arrowhead's own zone 5a and its 162-day season. Each card opens that plant's Maine profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Lake Arrowhead?
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 Apr 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near May 2 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 11 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. As the window narrows, the plantings just get faster — fall brassicas, then greens, then garlic to finish.
Documented around Lake Arrowhead
Survey cells within 31 miles of Lake Arrowhead checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 41 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Lake Arrowhead
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Lake Arrowhead. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- YW 792ANitrate · 1.0 mi
- BRUNETTIS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- LAKE ARROWHEAD COMMUNITY INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- LAKE ARROWHEAD COMMUNITY INCPFAS · 1.9 mi
- MDOT MAINTENANCE FACILITYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- YW 812Nitrate · 2.3 mi
- ENGELKE, SUSANUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- PAUL HOWE REALTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- UPTOWN AUTO SALES AND SERVICE INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- OLD COUNTRY STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- MERRILLS COUNTRY STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
- NOURIA ENERGY LIMERICK BULKUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Lake Arrowhead'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 Lake Arrowhead.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Lake Arrowhead
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Lake Arrowhead
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Lake Arrowhead, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 50 sites within ~10 miles of Lake Arrowhead. 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 Lake Arrowhead
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 Lake Arrowhead average
Your land is one point inside Lake Arrowhead
Everything above resolves to Lake Arrowhead 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 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 Lake Arrowhead Average
Lake Arrowhead Average
- ●USDA Zones 5a, averaged across Lake Arrowhead
- ●One soil character for all of Lake Arrowhead
- ●Frost dates read at Lake Arrowhead's scale: May 2 to Oct 11
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lake Arrowhead's 5a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Lake Arrowhead
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Lake Arrowhead, Maine — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lake Arrowhead averages can't show:
We read public map data around Lake Arrowhead — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lake Arrowhead average
How we know this about Lake Arrowhead
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 Lake Arrowhead’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 Lake Arrowhead
When does frost risk typically end in Lake Arrowhead?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Lake Arrowhead typically lands around May 2, 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 May 23.
When is the first frost in Lake Arrowhead?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Lake Arrowhead typically arrives around Oct 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Sep 27, so the watching starts about Sep 11 — about 162 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Lake Arrowhead?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Lake Arrowhead sees about 162 frost-free days — roughly May 2 through Oct 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 23 to Sep 27, about 127 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Lake Arrowhead?
The federal record around Lake Arrowhead is a meaningful one — 144 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (70), the nearest Nitrate record about 1.0 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 Lake Arrowhead?
From about Sep 11 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 11 (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 11. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Lake Arrowhead's scale — its 5a band and its 162-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Lake Arrowhead'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 Lake Arrowhead’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Lake Arrowhead's own scale — its own ~162-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,337 acres it covers and 144 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Lake Arrowhead's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Lake Arrowhead's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about May 2 and Oct 11 and the ~162-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 144 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Lake Arrowhead, the closest Nitrate record about 1.0 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Lake Arrowhead's boundary and the 3,337 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5a and a ~162-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Lake Arrowhead's own centroid, the Northeastern Coastal ZoneUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Lake Arrowhead 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 Lake Arrowhead's 3,337 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom York County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom York County
- The growing challenges every Maine grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Maine
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom York County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Lake Arrowhead's 3,337 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Lake Arrowhead you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,337 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 1.0 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 Lake Arrowhead-wide figureread your own land →
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