Advance, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Advance, 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 Advance 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 Advance — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Advance — the short answer
Advance, Missouri: USDA zone 7a, about 229 days between hard freezes, across 715 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~229
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 715 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 7a is Advance's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Advance's 229-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Advance
Each reading below is measured for Advance itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredAdvance runs about 229 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
MeasuredAdvance sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Advance is in
Advance sits in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Advance's own centroid rather than borrowed from Stoddard County.
What Grows in Advance
Every plant below cleared Advance's own zone 7a and its 229-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Advance?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 23; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 23 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 7 — 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 Advance
Survey cells within 31 miles of Advance checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 190 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Advance
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Advance. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- T28N R10E 11DBC1Nitrate · 200 ft
- T28N R10E 11DBCNitrate · 350 ft
- MIRACLE RECREATION EQUIPMENT CO.Toxics Release Inventory · 500 ft
- CLAUD CORBINUnderground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- AMERIMART #17Underground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- HORIZON MUSIC/RAPCOToxics Release Inventory · 1600 ft
- ADVANCE R-IV SCHOOL DISTRICTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- SEMO READY MIX - ADVANCEToxics Release Inventory · 1800 ft
- SEMO OPERATING COMPANYToxics Release Inventory · 2000 ft
- RHODES GAS MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- ROSS MINI MART #7Underground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- FAMILY DOLLAR # 9297Brownfields · 2200 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Advance'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 Advance.
Total Sites
44
within ~10 miles of Advance
Risk Level
Low
Highest-severity
5 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Advance
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Advance
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Advance, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Advance — Nitrate (22 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (5 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Advance
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 Advance average
Your land is one point inside Advance
Everything above resolves to Advance as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 715 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 city 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 Advance Average
Advance Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Advance
- ●One soil character for all of Advance
- ●Frost dates read at Advance's scale: Mar 23 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Advance's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Advance
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Advance, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Advance averages can't show:
We read public map data around Advance — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Advance average
How we know this about Advance
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Advance’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Advance
When does frost risk typically end in Advance?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Advance typically lands around Mar 23, 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 13.
When is the first frost in Advance?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Advance typically arrives around Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 24, so the watching starts about Oct 8 — about 229 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Advance?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Advance sees about 229 frost-free days — roughly Mar 23 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 13 to Oct 24, about 194 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Advance?
The federal record around Advance is light — 44 documented sites across the 9 federal source types we checked, mostly Nitrate entries (22), the nearest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile out — and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. Growing food here starts from a strong position; a soil test before new food beds settles any site-specific question.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Advance?
From about Oct 8 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 7 (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 7. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Advance's scale — its 7a band and its 229-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Advance'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 Advance’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Advance's own scale — its own ~229-day season between 28°F freezes, the 715 acres it covers and 44 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Advance's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Advance's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 23 and Nov 7 and the ~229-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 44 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Advance, the closest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Advance's boundary and the 715 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~229-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Advance's own centroid, the Mississippi Alluvial PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Advance 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 Advance's 715 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Stoddard County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Stoddard County
- The growing challenges every Missouri grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Missouri
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Stoddard County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Advance's 715 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Advance you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 715 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile 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 Advance-wide figureread your own land →
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