Walpole, Massachusetts, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
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 Walpole, 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 Walpole 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 Walpole — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Walpole — the short answer
Walpole, Massachusetts: USDA zone 6b, about 200 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~200
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 2K 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 Walpole's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Walpole's 200-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Walpole
Each reading below is measured for Walpole itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredWalpole runs about 200 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
MeasuredWalpole 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 Walpole is in
Walpole sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Walpole's own centroid rather than borrowed from Norfolk County.
What Grows in Walpole
Every plant below cleared Walpole's own zone 6b and its 200-day season. Each card opens that plant's Massachusetts profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Walpole?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 10 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 27 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Walpole
Spotted lanternfly documented 5 miles from Walpole, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Walpole
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Walpole. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CUMBERLAND FARMS INCBrownfields · 1000 ft
- CUMBERLAND FARMS INC #2008Underground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- WALPOLE COUNTRY CLUBUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- GRANITE REALTY TRUSTBrownfields · 2100 ft
- EDWARD J DELANEY WATER TREATMENT PLANTBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- MA-WCW 88Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- ROYAL CREST COUNTRY CLUB CONDOMINIUM TRUSTBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- JOES AUTOBODYBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- BLACKBURN & UNION PRIVILEGES SUPERFUND SITEBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- SINCLAIRE ENTERPRISESBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- COSMEC INCToxics Release Inventory · 0.6 mi
- COSMEC INCBrownfields · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Walpole'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 Walpole.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Walpole
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Walpole
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Walpole, Brownfields runs higher than the national average — 1,392 sites within ~10 miles of Walpole. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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 Walpole
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 Walpole average
Your land is one point inside Walpole
Everything above resolves to Walpole as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 Walpole Average
Walpole Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Walpole
- ●One soil character for all of Walpole
- ●Frost dates read at Walpole's scale: Apr 10 to Oct 27
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Walpole's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Walpole
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Walpole, Massachusetts — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Walpole averages can't show:
We read public map data around Walpole — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Walpole average
How we know this about Walpole
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 Walpole’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 Walpole
When does frost risk typically end in Walpole?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Walpole typically lands around Apr 10, 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 1.
When is the first frost in Walpole?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Walpole typically arrives around Oct 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 13, so the watching starts about Sep 27 — about 200 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Walpole?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Walpole sees about 200 frost-free days — roughly Apr 10 through Oct 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 1 to Oct 13, about 165 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Walpole?
The federal record around Walpole runs heavier than most — 2,227 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (1,392), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.2 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 Walpole?
From about Sep 27 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 27 (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 27. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Walpole's scale — its 6b band and its 200-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Walpole'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 Walpole’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Walpole's own scale — its own ~200-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,798 acres it covers and 2,227 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Walpole's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Walpole's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 10 and Oct 27 and the ~200-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 2,227 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Walpole, the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Walpole's boundary and the 1,798 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~200-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Walpole's own centroid, the Northeastern Coastal ZoneUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Walpolelydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Walpole's 1,798 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 Walpole's 1,798 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Walpole you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,798 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 Walpole-wide figureread your own land →
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