Lilbourn, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
These conditions suit cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Lilbourn, 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 Lilbourn 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 Lilbourn — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Lilbourn — the short answer
Lilbourn, Missouri: USDA zone 7b, about 252 days between hard freezes, across 605 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~252
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 605 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 7b is Lilbourn's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Lilbourn's 252-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Lilbourn
Each reading below is measured for Lilbourn itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLilbourn runs about 252 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
MeasuredLilbourn sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b.
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 Lilbourn is in
Lilbourn sits in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Lilbourn's own centroid rather than borrowed from New Madrid County.
What Grows in Lilbourn
Every plant below cleared Lilbourn's own zone 7b and its 252-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Lilbourn?
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 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 13 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 20 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Lilbourn
Survey cells within 31 miles of Lilbourn checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 165 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Lilbourn
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Lilbourn. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- TOWNLEYS STATION & CAR WASHUnderground Storage Tanks · 500 ft
- MFA OIL COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- T23N R13E 35ACC1Nitrate · 1100 ft
- H. G. RHODESUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- T23N R13E 35ADA1Nitrate · 1500 ft
- T23N R13E 35CAANitrate · 1900 ft
- CASEYS GENERAL STORE #1884Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- GREAT RIVER SOY PROCESSING LLCToxics Release Inventory · 0.5 mi
- T23N R13E 35CAA1Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- NEW MADRID COUNTY R1 SCHOOL DISTRICTBrownfields · 2.1 mi
- KOCH ASPHALTUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.2 mi
- BROWN SAND & GRAVEL DBA HEARTLAND ASPHALT MATERIALSToxics Release Inventory · 3.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Lilbourn'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 Lilbourn.
Total Sites
69
within ~10 miles of Lilbourn
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
7 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Lilbourn
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Lilbourn
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Lilbourn, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Lilbourn — Nitrate (34 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (7 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.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Lilbourn
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 Lilbourn average
Your land is one point inside Lilbourn
Everything above resolves to Lilbourn as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 605 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 Lilbourn Average
Lilbourn Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Lilbourn
- ●One soil character for all of Lilbourn
- ●Frost dates read at Lilbourn's scale: Mar 13 to Nov 20
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lilbourn's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Lilbourn
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Lilbourn, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lilbourn averages can't show:
We read public map data around Lilbourn — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lilbourn average
How we know this about Lilbourn
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 Lilbourn’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 Lilbourn
When does frost risk typically end in Lilbourn?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Lilbourn typically lands around Mar 13, 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 3.
When is the first frost in Lilbourn?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Lilbourn typically arrives around Nov 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 6, so the watching starts about Oct 21 — about 252 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Lilbourn?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Lilbourn sees about 252 frost-free days — roughly Mar 13 through Nov 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 3 to Nov 6, about 217 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Lilbourn?
The federal record around Lilbourn shows 69 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (34), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Lilbourn?
From about Oct 21 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 20 (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 20. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Lilbourn's scale — its 7b band and its 252-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Lilbourn'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 Lilbourn’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Lilbourn's own scale — its own ~252-day season between 28°F freezes, the 605 acres it covers and 69 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Lilbourn's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Lilbourn's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 13 and Nov 20 and the ~252-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 69 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Lilbourn, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Lilbourn's boundary and the 605 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~252-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Lilbourn's own centroid, the Mississippi Alluvial PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Lilbourn 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 Lilbourn's 605 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom New Madrid County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom New Madrid 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 New Madrid County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Lilbourn's 605 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Lilbourn you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 605 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 Lilbourn-wide figureread your own land →