Pulaski County, in Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
The conditions favor cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Pulaski County lies within the Ozarks — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Pulaski County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Pulaski County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Pulaski County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Pulaski County — the short answer
Pulaski County, Missouri: USDA zone 6b, about 212 days between hard freezes, across 350K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~212
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 350K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 Pulaski County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Pulaski County's 212-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Pulaski County
Across a year, Pulaski County accumulates about 3,785 growing degree days above 50°F, about 32 more than the middle Missouri county — ahead of 62 of Missouri’s 115 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Pulaski County
Across Pulaski County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Clarksville, Poynor, and Union are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally moderately well drained with a very gravelly silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.0–6.1, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Moderately well drained
Prime farmland
5%
Hydric soils
1%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Pulaski County
The USDA soil survey maps 35% of Pulaski County as moderately well drained — but another 65% drains differently: 34% well drained, 29% somewhat excessively drained.
Clarksville is the most extensive named soil at 23% of mapped acres, then Poynor (14%) and Union (12%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Pulaski County
Each reading below is measured for Pulaski County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Pulaski County are moderately well drained, in hydrologic group C — roughly the middle of the drainage range.
This is close to the middle most vegetables prefer: it holds enough water to carry a crop between rains without staying waterlogged. The catch is that a wet spring or a low corner can still tip it soggy.
Plant on the site as-is for most crops, but keep the lowest, slowest-draining beds for moisture-tolerant plantings.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Pulaski County runs about pH 5.0–6.1, on the acidic side.
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
Season length
MeasuredPulaski County runs about 212 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
MeasuredPulaski County 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 Pulaski County is in
Pulaski County sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Pulaski County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Pulaski County's own USDA zone 6b and its own 212-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile.
Is it too late to plant in Pulaski County?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 1 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 30 — 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.
Documented around Pulaski County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Pulaski County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 325 miles off. What to watch for.
What gets applied to farmland in Pulaski County
USGS estimates 2,713 lb of 2,4-d on Pulaski County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Glyphosate (1,972 lb) and Triclopyr (836 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Pulaski County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Pulaski County — 330 documented sites across 8 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed). Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Pulaski County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Pulaski County
Closest first, across Pulaski County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BENCH MOTOR CO INCBrownfields · 950 ft
- WESTSIDEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- LARRY K. ROGERSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- ONE-STOP SKELLYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- FT WOOD SPURUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- HOWARDS READY MIXUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- T36N R12W 24CCC1Nitrate · 1100 ft
- ROUBIDOUX STORM WATER LIFT STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- DOWNTOWN SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- RIGSBY STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- WASTEWATER PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- PINEY RIDGE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Pulaski County'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 Pulaski County.
Total Sites
330
across Pulaski County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Severity Distribution
across Pulaski County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Pulaski County, two things run higher than the national average across Pulaski County — Nitrate (220 sites) and PFAS (5 sites). 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.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Pulaski County
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 Pulaski County average
Your land is one point inside Pulaski County
Everything above resolves to Pulaski County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 350K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Pulaski County Average
Pulaski County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Pulaski County
- ●One soil character for all of Pulaski County
- ●Frost dates read at Pulaski County's scale: Apr 1 to Oct 30
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Pulaski County's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Pulaski County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Pulaski County, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Pulaski County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Pulaski County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Pulaski County average
How we know this about Pulaski County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Pulaski County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Pulaski County
When does frost risk typically end in Pulaski County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Pulaski County typically lands around Apr 1, 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 22.
How long is the growing season in Pulaski County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Pulaski County sees about 212 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 16, about 177 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Pulaski County?
The federal record around Pulaski County is a meaningful one — 330 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (220), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.2 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.
Everything above is measured at Pulaski County's scale — its 6b band and its 212-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Pulaski County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Missouri's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Pulaski County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Pulaski County's own scale — its own ~212-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 330 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Pulaski County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Pulaski County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~212-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Pulaski CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 330 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Pulaski County's boundary and the 350,152 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~212-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Pulaski County sitting wholly inside the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Pulaski County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Missouri grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Missouri
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Pulaski County — the ~212 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Pulaski County's 350,152 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 330 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Pulaski Countyread your own land →