Lake Ozark, 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.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Lake Ozark, 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 Lake Ozark 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 Lake Ozark — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Lake Ozark — the short answer
Lake Ozark, Missouri: USDA zone 7a, about 228 days between hard freezes, across 5K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~228
- 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 7a is Lake Ozark's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Lake Ozark's 228-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Lake Ozark
Each reading below is measured for Lake Ozark itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLake Ozark runs about 228 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
MeasuredLake Ozark 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 Lake Ozark is in
Lake Ozark sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Lake Ozark's own centroid rather than borrowed from Miller County.
What Grows in Lake Ozark
Every plant below cleared Lake Ozark's own zone 7a and its 228-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Lake Ozark?
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 27; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 27 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 10 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Lake Ozark
Survey cells within 31 miles of Lake Ozark checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 341 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Lake Ozark
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Lake Ozark. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- RIDE THE DUCKSUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- EDGEWATER MARINAUnderground Storage Tanks · 500 ft
- T40N R15W 19DCA1Nitrate · 900 ft
- STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- BEACHCOMBER RESORTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- OSAGE PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- OSAGE MIDDLE SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- EICHERS AUTOUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- AMEREN UNION ELECTRIC COMPANY LAKESIDE COMPLEXBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- OZARK YACHT CLUBUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- STANTON MANUFACTURING CO INC-LAKE OZARKBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- LAKESIDE GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Lake Ozark'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 Lake Ozark.
Total Sites
193
within ~10 miles of Lake Ozark
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
4 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Lake Ozark
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Lake Ozark
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Lake Ozark, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Lake Ozark — Mining (32 sites) and PFAS (3 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Lake Ozark
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 Lake Ozark average
Your land is one point inside Lake Ozark
Everything above resolves to Lake Ozark 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 Lake Ozark Average
Lake Ozark Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Lake Ozark
- ●One soil character for all of Lake Ozark
- ●Frost dates read at Lake Ozark's scale: Mar 27 to Nov 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lake Ozark's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Lake Ozark
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Lake Ozark, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lake Ozark averages can't show:
We read public map data around Lake Ozark — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lake Ozark average
How we know this about Lake Ozark
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 Lake Ozark’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 Lake Ozark
When does frost risk typically end in Lake Ozark?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Lake Ozark typically lands around Mar 27, 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 17.
When is the first frost in Lake Ozark?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Lake Ozark typically arrives around Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 27, so the watching starts about Oct 11 — about 228 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Lake Ozark?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Lake Ozark sees about 228 frost-free days — roughly Mar 27 through Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 17 to Oct 27, about 193 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Lake Ozark?
The federal record around Lake Ozark runs heavier than most — 193 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (101), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Lake Ozark?
From about Oct 11 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 10 (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 10. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Lake Ozark's scale — its 7a band and its 228-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Lake Ozark'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 Lake Ozark’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Lake Ozark's own scale — its own ~228-day season between 28°F freezes, the 4,601 acres it covers and 193 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Lake Ozark's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Lake Ozark's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 27 and Nov 10 and the ~228-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 193 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Lake Ozark, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Lake Ozark's boundary and the 4,601 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~228-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Lake Ozark's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Lake Ozark 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 Lake Ozark's 4,601 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Miller County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Miller 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 Miller County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Lake Ozark's 4,601 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Lake Ozark you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 4,601 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Lake Ozark-wide figureread your own land →
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