Birch Tree, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Expect cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Birch Tree, 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 Birch Tree 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 Birch Tree — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Birch Tree — the short answer
Birch Tree, Missouri: USDA zone 7a, about 218 days between hard freezes, across 884 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~218
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 884 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 Birch Tree's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Birch Tree's 218-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Birch Tree
Each reading below is measured for Birch Tree itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBirch Tree runs about 218 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
MeasuredBirch Tree 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 Birch Tree is in
Birch Tree sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Birch Tree's own centroid rather than borrowed from Shannon County.
What Grows in Birch Tree
Every plant below cleared Birch Tree's own zone 7a and its 218-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Birch Tree?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 2; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 30 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 3 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Birch Tree
Survey cells within 31 miles of Birch Tree checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 272 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Birch Tree
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Birch Tree. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- LUCKYS TRAVEL CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- BIRCH TREE QUICK STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- BIRCH TREE 66 STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- MISSOURI HARDWOOD FLOORING COUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- BARTON MARINEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- T27N R05W 22Nitrate · 1800 ft
- CITY OF BIRCH TREEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- T27N R05W 21CAA1Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- OZARK POST AND LUMBERSuperfund · 1.4 mi
- T27N R05W 35AAANitrate · 2.6 mi
- T26N R05W 02CDDNitrate · 3.8 mi
- Unknown Copper Usfs LandMining · 4.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Birch Tree'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 Birch Tree.
Total Sites
59
within ~10 miles of Birch Tree
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Birch Tree
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Birch Tree
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Birch Tree, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 36 sites within ~10 miles of Birch Tree. 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 Birch Tree
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 Birch Tree average
Your land is one point inside Birch Tree
Everything above resolves to Birch Tree as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 884 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 Birch Tree Average
Birch Tree Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Birch Tree
- ●One soil character for all of Birch Tree
- ●Frost dates read at Birch Tree's scale: Mar 30 to Nov 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Birch Tree's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Birch Tree
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Birch Tree, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Birch Tree averages can't show:
We read public map data around Birch Tree — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Birch Tree average
How we know this about Birch Tree
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 Birch Tree’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 Birch Tree
When does frost risk typically end in Birch Tree?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Birch Tree typically lands around Mar 30, 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 20.
When is the first frost in Birch Tree?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Birch Tree typically arrives around Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 20, so the watching starts about Oct 4 — about 218 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Birch Tree?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Birch Tree sees about 218 frost-free days — roughly Mar 30 through Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 20 to Oct 20, about 183 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Birch Tree?
The federal record around Birch Tree is a meaningful one — 59 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (36), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Birch Tree?
From about Oct 4 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 3 (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 3. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Birch Tree's scale — its 7a band and its 218-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Birch Tree'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 Birch Tree’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Birch Tree's own scale — its own ~218-day season between 28°F freezes, the 884 acres it covers and 59 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Birch Tree's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Birch Tree's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 30 and Nov 3 and the ~218-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 59 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Birch Tree, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Birch Tree's boundary and the 884 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~218-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Birch Tree's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Birch Tree 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 Birch Tree's 884 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Shannon County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Shannon 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 Shannon County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Birch Tree's 884 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Birch Tree you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 884 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Birch Tree-wide figureread your own land →
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