Miller, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
The conditions favor cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Miller, 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 Miller 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 Miller — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Miller — the short answer
Miller, Missouri: USDA zone 7a, about 219 days between hard freezes, across 491 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 31
- 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
- ~219
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 491 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 Miller's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Miller's 219-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Miller
Each reading below is measured for Miller itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMiller runs about 219 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
MeasuredMiller 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 Miller is in
Miller sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Miller's own centroid rather than borrowed from Lawrence County.
What Grows in Miller
Every plant below cleared Miller's own zone 7a and its 219-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Miller?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 3; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 31 (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. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
What's on the federal record near Miller
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Miller. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MILLER BENEFIT ROAD DISTRICTUnderground Storage Tanks · 250 ft
- CITY PROPERTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- T29N R27W 23ADA1Nitrate · 550 ft
- MILLER SCOOL DISTRICTUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- MARTIN'S MFA SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- RAYMONDS PAYLESS AUTOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- CASEYS GENERAL STORE #1079Underground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- T29N R27W 24BBDNitrate · 1600 ft
- NK FARMCAFO · 1.5 mi
- SOUTHWESTERN BELLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- KAW TRANSPORT COMPANY - SOLDUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
- WILMOTH OIL COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Miller'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 Miller.
Total Sites
110
within ~10 miles of Miller
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
7 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Miller
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Miller
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Miller, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Miller — CAFO (5 sites) and Mining (22 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Miller
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 Miller average
Your land is one point inside Miller
Everything above resolves to Miller as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 491 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 Miller Average
Miller Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Miller
- ●One soil character for all of Miller
- ●Frost dates read at Miller's scale: Mar 31 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Miller's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Miller
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Miller, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Miller averages can't show:
We read public map data around Miller — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Miller average
How we know this about Miller
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 Miller’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 Miller
When does frost risk typically end in Miller?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Miller typically lands around Mar 31, 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 21.
When is the first frost in Miller?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Miller 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 219 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Miller?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Miller sees about 219 frost-free days — roughly Mar 31 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 21 to Oct 22, about 184 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Miller?
The federal record around Miller runs heavier than most — 110 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (37), 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 Miller?
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 Miller's scale — its 7a band and its 219-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Miller'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 Miller’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Miller's own scale — its own ~219-day season between 28°F freezes, the 491 acres it covers and 110 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Miller's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Miller's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 31 and Nov 5 and the ~219-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 110 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Miller, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Miller's boundary and the 491 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~219-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Miller's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Miller's 491 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Lawrence County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Lawrence 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 Lawrence County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Miller's 491 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Miller you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 491 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 Miller-wide figureread your own land →
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