Park Hills, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Expect cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Park Hills, 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 Park Hills 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 Park Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Park Hills — the short answer
Park Hills, Missouri: USDA zone 6b, about 211 days between hard freezes, across 13K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~211
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 13K 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 6b is Park Hills's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Park Hills's 211-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Park Hills
Each reading below is measured for Park Hills itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPark Hills runs about 211 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
MeasuredPark Hills sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Park Hills is in
Park Hills sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Park Hills's own centroid rather than borrowed from St. Francois County.
What Grows in Park Hills
Every plant below cleared Park Hills's own zone 6b and its 211-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Park Hills?
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 Oct 28 — 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.
What's on the federal record near Park Hills
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Park Hills. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SJMW 01-60Nitrate · 1700 ft
- SJMW 01-42Nitrate · 1700 ft
- St Joe LY 01-2Nitrate · 1700 ft
- SJMW 08-52Nitrate · 1800 ft
- SJMW 08-20Nitrate · 1800 ft
- SJMW 08-11Nitrate · 1800 ft
- Mine Number Sevennational LeadMining · 0.6 mi
- Mine Number Ninefederal Lead CoMining · 0.8 mi
- SJMW 06-94Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- SJMW 06-53Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- SJMW 06-100Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- St Joe LY 02-2Nitrate · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Park Hills'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 Park Hills.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Park Hills
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Park Hills
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Park Hills, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Park Hills — Mining (83 sites) and Superfund (12 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Park Hills
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 Park Hills average
Your land is one point inside Park Hills
Everything above resolves to Park Hills as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 13K 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 Park Hills Average
Park Hills Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Park Hills
- ●One soil character for all of Park Hills
- ●Frost dates read at Park Hills's scale: Mar 31 to Oct 28
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Park Hills's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Park Hills
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Park Hills, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Park Hills averages can't show:
We read public map data around Park Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Park Hills average
How we know this about Park Hills
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 Park Hills’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 Park Hills
When does frost risk typically end in Park Hills?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Park Hills 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 Park Hills?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Park Hills typically arrives around Oct 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 14, so the watching starts about Sep 28 — about 211 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Park Hills?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Park Hills sees about 211 frost-free days — roughly Mar 31 through Oct 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 21 to Oct 14, about 176 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Park Hills?
The federal record around Park Hills runs heavier than most — 409 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (132), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.3 miles 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 Park Hills?
From about Sep 28 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 Oct 28 (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 Oct 28. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Park Hills's scale — its 6b band and its 211-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Park Hills'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 Park Hills’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Park Hills's own scale — its own ~211-day season between 28°F freezes, the 13,014 acres it covers and 409 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Park Hills's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Park Hills's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 31 and Oct 28 and the ~211-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 409 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Park Hills, the closest Nitrate record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Park Hills's boundary and the 13,014 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~211-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Park Hills's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Park Hills's 13,014 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom St. Francois County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom St. Francois 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 St. Francois County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Park Hills's 13,014 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Park Hills you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 13,014 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.3 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 Park Hills-wide figureread your own land →
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