Brookline, Massachusetts, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
These conditions suit cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
You’re in Greater Boston
The state's dense urban core, where growing means raised beds, community plots, and back-lot kitchen gardens more than open field. A long, mild season for the region — but city soil is the thing to know before you dig.
Even in Brookline, 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 Brookline 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 Brookline — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Brookline — the short answer
Brookline, Massachusetts: USDA zone 6b, about 222 days between hard freezes, across 4K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~222
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 4K 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 Brookline's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Brookline's 222-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Brookline
Each reading below is measured for Brookline itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBrookline runs about 222 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
MeasuredBrookline 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 Brookline is in
Brookline sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Brookline's own centroid rather than borrowed from Norfolk County.
What Grows in Brookline
Every plant below cleared Brookline's own zone 6b and its 222-day season. Each card opens that plant's Massachusetts profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Brookline?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 1 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 9 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Brookline
Spotted lanternfly documented 5 miles from Brookline, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Brookline
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Brookline. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CHESTNUT HILL AUTO CLINICUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- BOSTON ORTHOPAEDIC AND SPINE LLCBrownfields · 2000 ft
- 845 BOYLSTON STREET LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL 850 BOYLSTON STBrownfields · 2300 ft
- LONGYEAR AT FISHER HILL CONDOMINIUMBrownfields · 2500 ft
- NEWBURY COLLEGEBrownfields · 2500 ft
- BOSTON SCHOOLS WHITE STADIUMBrownfields · 2600 ft
- COUNTRY CLUB THEBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- Chestnut Hill Benevolent AssociationUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- THE PARK SCHOOLBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- ESTATE OF LEONARD PATENAUDEBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- BOSTON COLLEGE BROOKLINE CAMPUSBrownfields · 0.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Brookline'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 Brookline.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Brookline
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Brookline
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Brookline, Brownfields runs higher than the national average — 5,274 sites within ~10 miles of Brookline. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Brownfields: Brownfield sites are former commercial or industrial properties where legacy soil contamination (heavy metals, PAHs, petroleum compounds) may persist.
Check EPA brownfield remediation status — many sites have completed cleanup with institutional controls.
Check your specific parcel in Brookline
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 Brookline average
Your land is one point inside Brookline
Everything above resolves to Brookline as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 4K 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 Brookline Average
Brookline Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Brookline
- ●One soil character for all of Brookline
- ●Frost dates read at Brookline's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Brookline's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Brookline
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Brookline, Massachusetts — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Brookline averages can't show:
We read public map data around Brookline — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Brookline average
How we know this about Brookline
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 Brookline’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 Brookline
When does frost risk typically end in Brookline?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Brookline typically lands around Apr 1, 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 22.
When is the first frost in Brookline?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Brookline typically arrives around Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 26, so the watching starts about Oct 10 — about 222 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Brookline?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Brookline sees about 222 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 26, about 187 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Brookline?
The federal record around Brookline runs heavier than most — 7,479 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (5,274), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Brookline?
From about Oct 10 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 9 (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 9. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Brookline's scale — its 6b band and its 222-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Brookline'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 Brookline’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Brookline's own scale — its own ~222-day season between 28°F freezes, the 4,325 acres it covers and 7,479 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Brookline's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Brookline's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 1 and Nov 9 and the ~222-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 7,479 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Brookline, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Brookline's boundary and the 4,325 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~222-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Brookline's own centroid, the Northeastern Coastal ZoneUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Brooklinelydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Brookline's 4,325 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Norfolk County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Norfolk County
- The growing challenges every Massachusetts grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Massachusetts
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Norfolk County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Brookline's 4,325 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Brookline you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 4,325 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Brookline-wide figureread your own land →
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