The Missouri Bootheel spans USDA hardiness zones 7a-7b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Missouri's warmest, longest-season corner — the flat Mississippi Alluvial Plain south of the Ozark escarpment, where USDA zone 7a-7b and up to 258 frost-free days run a full 1.5-2 zones ahead of the rocky uplands 100 miles north. On these deep, drained delta soils growers keep a Delta calendar, not a Missouri one: cotton, rice, soybeans, and melons, with a spring that opens 3-4 weeks earlier than the rest of the state. Expect tomato, peach, dogwood, and grape to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
The Missouri Bootheel spans Missouri.
Your yard isn't all of the Missouri Bootheel.
The Missouri Bootheel spans USDA zones 7a-7b, 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 Missouri Bootheel — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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The Missouri Bootheel — the short answer
The Missouri Bootheel: USDA zones 7a-7b, 239–258 frost-free days, in Missouri.
- USDA zones
- 7a-7b
- USDA PHZM 2023, aggregated over the footprint
- Frost-free season
- 239–258 days
- NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- Counties
- 7
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Region type
- County 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 Missouri Bootheel
Plants matched to the Missouri Bootheel's USDA zones 7a-7b, 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 Missouri Bootheel
Plants the USDA PLANTS Database documents as native and present in this region’s state, kept only where the published hardiness range meets the Missouri Bootheel’s USDA zones 7a-7b — 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 across the Missouri Bootheel
The USDA soil survey maps this ground county by county. These are those records weighted by land area across seven member counties — this region’s own profile, not a state figure.
The ground is predominantly Alfisols, at 36% of mapped acres, followed by Entisols (24%), Vertisols (18%) and Inceptisols (11%). Six soil orders appear somewhere inside the footprint, which is the honest reason a regional soil answer only goes so far. The most extensive named soils are Sharkey, Calhoun, and Gideon.
45% of those acres are poorly drained, and another 20% somewhat poorly drained, 15% moderately well drained. Topsoil pH runs 5.3–6.7 between the lowest and the highest county on record. 13% of the footprint is classed prime farmland.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Topsoil pH
5.3–6.7
Hydric soils
52%
Soil changes across a driveway, so which of these your own ground sits on is a parcel question rather than a regional one. New Madrid County holds the most wetland ground here, at 72% — soil types explained.
USDA NRCS SSURGO via Soil Data Access
What this means for growing in the Missouri Bootheel
The soil survey reads this ground county by county, and the readings above are those records summed across the Missouri Bootheel. 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 Missouri Bootheel are poorly drained — ground that sheds water slowly. That is area-weighted across all seven of its mapped counties.
Beds can stay saturated for days after heavy rain, and the roots of most vegetables, berries, and fruit trees suffocate or rot in soil that never drains.
Raised beds or mounded rows lift roots above the wet zone; choose water-tolerant crops for the lowest spots.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
From county recordsTopsoil across the Missouri Bootheel runs pH 5.3–6.7 — acidic in four of its seven counties.
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 Missouri Bootheel — and how to grow with it.
Across the Missouri Bootheel's 7 counties the federal record holds 1,382 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks (664), Nitrate (440) and Brownfields (158). The heaviest single county is Scott County, with 278.
That is a regional count, not a reading of any one lot — proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis. Open the map outlined to the Missouri Bootheel to see which records sit where you actually grow.
Sources Checked
Summed across the 7 counties in the Missouri Bootheel
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around the Missouri Bootheel, two things run higher than the national average across the 7 counties in the Missouri Bootheel — CAFO (19 sites) and Nitrate (440 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
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 Missouri Bootheel
Everything above resolves to the Missouri Bootheel as a whole — a footprint spanning USDA zones 7a-7b. 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 Missouri Bootheel Average
Missouri Bootheel Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a-7b, averaged across Missouri Bootheel
- ●One soil character for all of Missouri Bootheel
- ●State-average frost dates
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Missouri Bootheel's 7a-7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in the Missouri Bootheel
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in the Missouri Bootheel — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, contamination, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Missouri Bootheel averages can't show:
We read public map data around The Missouri Bootheel — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Missouri Bootheel average
How we know this about the Missouri Bootheel
The boundary: a cluster of neighboring counties. Growing regions have no official boundary, so this footprint is our published one, and every figure on this page was measured over the counties 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 Missouri Bootheel
What hardiness zone is the Missouri Bootheel?
The Missouri Bootheel spans USDA hardiness zones 7a-7b, aggregated from the USDA Agricultural Research Service Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023 across the region's counties. Zones reflect average annual extreme minimum temperatures from 1991–2020 data.
How long is the growing season in the Missouri Bootheel?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, the Missouri Bootheel's counties mostly run 241 to 255 frost-free days, median 243 (NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991–2020, over 7 member counties). That 14-day spread is the honest read — no single season describes 7 counties, and each county guide below carries its own.
When does frost risk end in the Missouri Bootheel?
Across the Missouri Bootheel, the middle half of member counties see their last 28°F hard freeze between Mar 12 and Mar 19 (median Mar 18), and their first fall freeze between Nov 15 and Nov 21. Those are hard freezes, not the last light frost: tender transplants wait for about Apr 8, and elevation decides which end of a 7-day spread you garden in.
What grows well in the Missouri Bootheel?
The Missouri Bootheel's conditions suit plants such as Tomato, Peach, Dogwood, Grape, Blackberry. 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 Missouri Bootheel defined?
The Missouri Bootheel is defined here as a curated cluster of 7 neighboring counties that share a growing character. Growing regions have no official boundary, so this footprint is our published one — every county in it is named on this page.
Which states does the Missouri Bootheel cover?
The Missouri Bootheel spans Missouri. Each state's full growing guide is linked on this page.
What other growing regions cover the same states?
Mississippi Delta, The Ozarks, North Missouri Glaciated Plains (Green Hills), and St. Louis Metro share at least one state with the Missouri Bootheel. 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 Missouri Bootheel’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at the Missouri Bootheel's own scale — the zone 7a-7b band across its footprint, a median 243-day season across its 7 counties and 1,382 documented federal contamination records across its 7 counties, 278 of them in Scott County alone; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- The USDA hardiness band 7a-7b aggregated across all 7 counties in the footprintUSDA PHZM 2023
- The boundary itself — the 7 counties 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 7 counties run 241 to 255 frost-free days, median 243NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- The federal contamination record over the whole footprint — 1,382 documented federal contamination records across its 7 counties, 278 of them in Scott County aloneEPA, USGS and USDA federal site records
- The soil order mix across the footprint — 36% Alfisols, topsoil pH 5.3–6.7, area-weighted across its 7 mapped countiesUSDA NRCS SSURGO
Inherited from a wider read
- The candidate plant list — its state's curated sets, merged and filtered to zones 7a-7bfrom Missouri
What this page can’t tell you
- Which end of the 14-day range your ground sits at — 241 days at one extreme, 255 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 Missouri Bootheel
State growing guides
Counties in this region
Other growing regions across Missouri
The flat, deep, dark alluvial bottomland of the lower Mississippi River — extraordinarily fertile cotton, soybean, rice, and sweet-potato ground.
A rugged Interior Highlands of cherty, rocky soils, oak-hickory forest, and clear streams — brambles, peaches, and tough hill gardens.
The cold, short-season top of Missouri. This northern glaciated tier holds all five of the state's only USDA zone 5b counties, with frost-free windows of roughly 202-208 days — a full hardiness zone and several planting weeks shorter than central Missouri or the Bootheel. Rolling glacial till and claypan prairie soils, later spring frosts (last frost mid-April), and earlier fall frosts (first frost late October) mean a firmly northern planting calendar built around cold-hardy varieties — not an Ozark one.
Greater St. Louis runs a full half-zone warmer than the countryside wrapped around it: the city and St. Louis County both read USDA zone 7a with a 237-242-day frost-free season, while the neighboring St. Charles and Jefferson countryside holds at 6b (221-229 days). The Missouri-Mississippi confluence and the city's urban heat island push last frost earlier and first frost later — the longest growing season anywhere in Missouri outside the Bootheel — long enough to matter for heat-lovers and a real second planting.