Bolivar, Missouri, 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.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Bolivar, 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 Bolivar 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 Bolivar — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Bolivar — the short answer
Bolivar, Missouri: USDA zone 6b, about 219 days between hard freezes, across 5K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 29
- 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
- ~219
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 5K 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 Bolivar's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bolivar's 219-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Bolivar
Each reading below is measured for Bolivar itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBolivar runs about 219 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
MeasuredBolivar 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 Bolivar is in
Bolivar sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Bolivar's own centroid rather than borrowed from Polk County.
What Grows in Bolivar
Every plant below cleared Bolivar's own zone 6b and its 219-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Bolivar?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 29 (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. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
What's on the federal record near Bolivar
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Bolivar. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- COCA-COLA BOTTLING CO OF BOLIVARUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- T33N R23W 11AAA1Nitrate · 2000 ft
- COFFEYS GROCERY & STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- BILL ROBERTS CHEV, PONT,OLDS,BUICKUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- VILES STATION PROPERTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- ORVILLE RAY BLANKENSHIPUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- BOLIVAR APCO STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- BOLIVAR PETRO-CARDUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- BOLIVAR HERALD FREE PRESSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- WOODS EXPRESS LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- DANI'S CONVENIENCE STORE #2,LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- SOUTHWEST ELECTRIC COOPERATIVEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bolivar'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 Bolivar.
Total Sites
72
within ~10 miles of Bolivar
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
4 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Bolivar
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Bolivar
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
Check your specific parcel in Bolivar
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 Bolivar average
Your land is one point inside Bolivar
Everything above resolves to Bolivar as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 5K 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 Bolivar Average
Bolivar Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Bolivar
- ●One soil character for all of Bolivar
- ●Frost dates read at Bolivar's scale: Mar 29 to Nov 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bolivar's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Bolivar
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bolivar, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bolivar averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bolivar — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bolivar average
How we know this about Bolivar
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 Bolivar’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 Bolivar
When does frost risk typically end in Bolivar?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bolivar typically lands around Mar 29, 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 19.
When is the first frost in Bolivar?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Bolivar 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 219 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Bolivar?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bolivar sees about 219 frost-free days — roughly Mar 29 through Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 19 to Oct 20, about 184 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Bolivar?
The federal record around Bolivar shows 72 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (40), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Bolivar?
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 Bolivar's scale — its 6b band and its 219-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bolivar'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 Bolivar’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Bolivar's own scale — its own ~219-day season between 28°F freezes, the 5,266 acres it covers and 72 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bolivar's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Bolivar's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 29 and Nov 3 and the ~219-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 72 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Bolivar, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Bolivar's boundary and the 5,266 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~219-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Bolivar's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Bolivar's 5,266 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Polk County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Polk 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 Polk County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Bolivar's 5,266 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Bolivar you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 5,266 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Bolivar-wide figureread your own land →
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