Morehouse, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
On paper, cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Morehouse, 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 Morehouse 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 Morehouse — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Morehouse — the short answer
Morehouse, Missouri: USDA zone 7b, about 251 days between hard freezes, across 515 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 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~251
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 515 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 Morehouse's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Morehouse's 251-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Morehouse
Each reading below is measured for Morehouse itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMorehouse runs about 251 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
MeasuredMorehouse 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 Morehouse is in
Morehouse sits in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Morehouse's own centroid rather than borrowed from New Madrid County.
What Grows in Morehouse
Every plant below cleared Morehouse's own zone 7b and its 251-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Morehouse?
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 19 — 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 Morehouse
Survey cells within 31 miles of Morehouse checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 173 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Morehouse
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Morehouse. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- T26N R13E 31DCDNitrate · 150 ft
- NEALS SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- CITY OF MOREHOUSEUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- T26N R13E 31DCC2Nitrate · 1100 ft
- WATKINS FUNERAL HOMEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- T26N R13E 31Nitrate · 1700 ft
- ALS QUICK SACKUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- T26N R13E 33BCC1Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- T26N R13E 17CCD1Nitrate · 3.0 mi
- T26N R13E 27BCDNitrate · 3.4 mi
- MALONE & HYDE, INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.4 mi
- ALAN WIRE CO INCToxics Release Inventory · 4.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Morehouse'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 Morehouse.
Total Sites
218
within ~10 miles of Morehouse
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
17 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Morehouse
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Morehouse
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Morehouse, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Morehouse — Toxics Release Inventory (17 sites) and Nitrate (64 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Morehouse
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 Morehouse average
Your land is one point inside Morehouse
Everything above resolves to Morehouse as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 515 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 Morehouse Average
Morehouse Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Morehouse
- ●One soil character for all of Morehouse
- ●Frost dates read at Morehouse's scale: Mar 13 to Nov 19
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Morehouse's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Morehouse
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Morehouse, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Morehouse averages can't show:
We read public map data around Morehouse — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Morehouse average
How we know this about Morehouse
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 Morehouse’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 Morehouse
When does frost risk typically end in Morehouse?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Morehouse 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 Morehouse?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Morehouse typically arrives around Nov 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 5, so the watching starts about Oct 20 — about 251 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Morehouse?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Morehouse sees about 251 frost-free days — roughly Mar 13 through Nov 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 3 to Nov 5, about 216 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Morehouse?
The federal record around Morehouse is a meaningful one — 218 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (95), the nearest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Morehouse?
From about Oct 20 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 19 (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 19. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Morehouse's scale — its 7b band and its 251-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Morehouse'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 Morehouse’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Morehouse's own scale — its own ~251-day season between 28°F freezes, the 515 acres it covers and 218 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Morehouse's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Morehouse's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 13 and Nov 19 and the ~251-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 218 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Morehouse, the closest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Morehouse's boundary and the 515 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~251-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Morehouse's own centroid, the Mississippi Alluvial PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Morehouse 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 Morehouse's 515 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 Morehouse's 515 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Morehouse you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 515 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate 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 Morehouse-wide figureread your own land →