Parkway, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
These conditions suit cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Parkway, 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 Parkway 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 Parkway — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Parkway — the short answer
Parkway, Missouri: USDA zone 6b, about 211 days between hard freezes, across 295 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~211
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 295 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 Parkway's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Parkway's 211-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Parkway
Each reading below is measured for Parkway itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredParkway 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
MeasuredParkway 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 Parkway is in
Parkway sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Parkway's own centroid rather than borrowed from Franklin County.
What Grows in Parkway
Every plant below cleared Parkway'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 Parkway?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 5; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 2 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 30 — 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 Parkway
Survey cells within 31 miles of Parkway checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 280 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Parkway
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Parkway. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- KS KWIK KORNERUnderground Storage Tanks · 400 ft
- GRAVOIS FASTOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- ST CLAIR R-13 SCHOOL DISTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Unknown - Pb /BaMining · 0.6 mi
- T42N R01W 36BAA1Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- CONTINENTAL BAKING COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- ST. CLAIR CENTRAL OFFICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- CITY OF ST CLAIRUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- T42N R01W 36BBD1Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- ST CLAIR ARROUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- ST CLAIR PWSPFAS · 1.0 mi
- ANACONDA SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Parkway'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 Parkway.
Total Sites
228
within ~10 miles of Parkway
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
21 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Parkway
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Parkway
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Parkway, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Parkway — Mining (70 sites) and PFAS (3 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.
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 Parkway
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 Parkway average
Your land is one point inside Parkway
Everything above resolves to Parkway as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 295 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 town 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 Parkway Average
Parkway Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Parkway
- ●One soil character for all of Parkway
- ●Frost dates read at Parkway's scale: Apr 2 to Oct 30
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Parkway's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Parkway
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Parkway, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Parkway averages can't show:
We read public map data around Parkway — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Parkway average
How we know this about Parkway
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Parkway’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 town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-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 Parkway
When does frost risk typically end in Parkway?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Parkway typically lands around Apr 2, 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 23.
When is the first frost in Parkway?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Parkway typically arrives around Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 16, so the watching starts about Sep 30 — about 211 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Parkway?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Parkway sees about 211 frost-free days — roughly Apr 2 through Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 23 to Oct 16, about 176 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Parkway?
The federal record around Parkway runs heavier than most — 228 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (85), 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 Parkway?
From about Sep 30 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 30 (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 30. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Parkway's scale — its 6b band and its 211-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Parkway'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 Parkway’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Parkway's own scale — its own ~211-day season between 28°F freezes, the 295 acres it covers and 228 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Parkway's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Parkway's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 2 and Oct 30 and the ~211-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 228 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Parkway, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Parkway's boundary and the 295 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 Parkway's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Parkway 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 Parkway's 295 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Franklin County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Franklin 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 Franklin County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Parkway's 295 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Parkway you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 295 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 Parkway-wide figureread your own land →
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