Cross Timbers, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Cross Timbers, 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 Cross Timbers 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 Cross Timbers — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Cross Timbers — the short answer
Cross Timbers, Missouri: USDA zone 6b, about 225 days between hard freezes, across 286 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~225
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 286 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 Cross Timbers's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Cross Timbers's 225-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Cross Timbers
Each reading below is measured for Cross Timbers itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCross Timbers runs about 225 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
MeasuredCross Timbers 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 Cross Timbers is in
Cross Timbers sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Cross Timbers's own centroid rather than borrowed from Hickory County.
What Grows in Cross Timbers
Every plant below cleared Cross Timbers's own zone 6b and its 225-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Cross Timbers?
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 26; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 26 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 6 — 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 Cross Timbers
Survey cells within 31 miles of Cross Timbers checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 372 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Cross Timbers
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Cross Timbers. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- T38N R21W 22CBC1Nitrate · 1300 ft
- Pomme De Terre MineMining · 2000 ft
- Seed Tick DiggingsMining · 1.6 mi
- Stearns DiggingsMining · 2.4 mi
- Barytes DiggingsMining · 2.5 mi
- Unknown - Lead Zinc BariteMining · 2.6 mi
- Carter DiggingsMining · 2.9 mi
- Gustka DiggingsMining · 5.2 mi
- White DiggingsMining · 5.2 mi
- T37N R22W 22ADA1Nitrate · 5.4 mi
- SOUTHWEST ELECTRIC COOPERATIVEUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.4 mi
- Unknown - Lead ZincMining · 5.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Cross Timbers'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 Cross Timbers.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Cross Timbers
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Cross Timbers
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Cross Timbers, Mining runs higher than the national average — 16 sites within ~10 miles of Cross Timbers. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Cross Timbers
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 Cross Timbers average
Your land is one point inside Cross Timbers
Everything above resolves to Cross Timbers as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 286 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 Cross Timbers Average
Cross Timbers Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Cross Timbers
- ●One soil character for all of Cross Timbers
- ●Frost dates read at Cross Timbers's scale: Mar 26 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Cross Timbers's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Cross Timbers
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Cross Timbers, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Cross Timbers averages can't show:
We read public map data around Cross Timbers — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Cross Timbers average
How we know this about Cross Timbers
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 Cross Timbers’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 Cross Timbers
When does frost risk typically end in Cross Timbers?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Cross Timbers typically lands around Mar 26, 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 16.
When is the first frost in Cross Timbers?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Cross Timbers typically arrives around Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 23, so the watching starts about Oct 7 — about 225 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Cross Timbers?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Cross Timbers sees about 225 frost-free days — roughly Mar 26 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 16 to Oct 23, about 190 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Cross Timbers?
The federal record around Cross Timbers runs heavier than most — 35 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (16), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.3 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Cross Timbers?
From about Oct 7 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 6 (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 6. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Cross Timbers's scale — its 6b band and its 225-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Cross Timbers'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 Cross Timbers’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Cross Timbers's own scale — its own ~225-day season between 28°F freezes, the 286 acres it covers and 35 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Cross Timbers's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Cross Timbers's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 26 and Nov 6 and the ~225-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 35 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Cross Timbers, the closest Nitrate record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Cross Timbers's boundary and the 286 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~225-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Cross Timbers's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Cross Timbers 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 Cross Timbers's 286 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Hickory County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Hickory 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 Hickory County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Cross Timbers's 286 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Cross Timbers you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 286 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.3 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 Cross Timbers-wide figureread your own land →
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