Doniphan, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
These conditions suit cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Doniphan, 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 Doniphan 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 Doniphan — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Doniphan — the short answer
Doniphan, Missouri: USDA zone 7a, about 224 days between hard freezes, across 881 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- 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 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~224
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 881 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 Doniphan's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Doniphan's 224-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Doniphan
Each reading below is measured for Doniphan itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredDoniphan runs about 224 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
MeasuredDoniphan 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 Doniphan is in
Doniphan sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Doniphan's own centroid rather than borrowed from Ripley County.
What Grows in Doniphan
Every plant below cleared Doniphan's own zone 7a and its 224-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Doniphan?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. 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 5 — 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 Doniphan
Survey cells within 31 miles of Doniphan checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 232 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Doniphan
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Doniphan. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- PARDLY 66Underground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- DONIPHAN STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- DEAN TOWNUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- ODOMS GROCERY - LOCATION CLOSEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- WILLIAM'S GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- MA & PA'S QUICK SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- QUICK CONNECTIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- NORTHEND MOTEL - LOCATION CLOSEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- HENRY TETTLETONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- CURRENTVIEW PKG & GROUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- CASEYS GENERAL STORE #1838Underground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- CJS PACKAGE STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Doniphan'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 Doniphan.
Total Sites
50
within ~10 miles of Doniphan
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Doniphan
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Doniphan
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Doniphan, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 36 sites within ~10 miles of Doniphan. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Doniphan
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 Doniphan average
Your land is one point inside Doniphan
Everything above resolves to Doniphan as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 881 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 Doniphan Average
Doniphan Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Doniphan
- ●One soil character for all of Doniphan
- ●Frost dates read at Doniphan's scale: Mar 26 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Doniphan's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Doniphan
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Doniphan, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Doniphan averages can't show:
We read public map data around Doniphan — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Doniphan average
How we know this about Doniphan
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 Doniphan’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 Doniphan
When does frost risk typically end in Doniphan?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Doniphan 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 Doniphan?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Doniphan typically arrives around Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 22, so the watching starts about Oct 6 — about 224 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Doniphan?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Doniphan sees about 224 frost-free days — roughly Mar 26 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 16 to Oct 22, about 189 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Doniphan?
The federal record around Doniphan shows 50 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (36), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Doniphan?
From about Oct 6 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 5 (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 5. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Doniphan's scale — its 7a band and its 224-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Doniphan'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 Doniphan’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Doniphan's own scale — its own ~224-day season between 28°F freezes, the 881 acres it covers and 50 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Doniphan's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Doniphan's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 26 and Nov 5 and the ~224-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 50 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Doniphan, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Doniphan's boundary and the 881 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~224-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Doniphan's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Doniphan 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 Doniphan's 881 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Ripley County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Ripley 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 Ripley County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Doniphan's 881 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Doniphan you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 881 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 Doniphan-wide figureread your own land →
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