Poplar Bluff, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Poplar Bluff, 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 Poplar Bluff 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 Poplar Bluff — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Poplar Bluff — the short answer
Poplar Bluff, Missouri: USDA zone 7b, about 244 days between hard freezes, across 9K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~244
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 9K 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 Poplar Bluff's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Poplar Bluff's 244-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Poplar Bluff
Each reading below is measured for Poplar Bluff itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPoplar Bluff runs about 244 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
MeasuredPoplar Bluff 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 Poplar Bluff is in
Poplar Bluff sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Poplar Bluff's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Butler County is mostly Mississippi Alluvial Plain. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Poplar Bluff
Every plant below cleared Poplar Bluff's own zone 7b and its 244-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Poplar Bluff?
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 18; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 18 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 17 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Poplar Bluff
Survey cells within 31 miles of Poplar Bluff checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 211 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Poplar Bluff
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Poplar Bluff. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- HUCKS #265 BUnderground Storage Tanks · 500 ft
- GAMMA HEALTHCARE, INC.Brownfields · 550 ft
- KMART #9500Underground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- PETCO #2617Brownfields · 750 ft
- OREILLY AUTO PARTS STORE 885Brownfields · 1200 ft
- SCHOOL BUS GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- MAKIT ENERGY INC (FORMER PJ'S CONOCO)Underground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- STADIUM MOTELUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- CITY OF POPLAR BLUFF FIRE DEPTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- CVS PHARMACY #10281Brownfields · 2400 ft
- SWAFFORDS AMOCO STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- WALGREENS #10153Brownfields · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Poplar Bluff'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 Poplar Bluff.
Total Sites
168
within ~10 miles of Poplar Bluff
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Poplar Bluff
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Poplar Bluff
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Poplar Bluff, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Poplar Bluff — Toxics Release Inventory (12 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (112 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Poplar Bluff
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 Poplar Bluff average
Your land is one point inside Poplar Bluff
Everything above resolves to Poplar Bluff as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 9K 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 Poplar Bluff Average
Poplar Bluff Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Poplar Bluff
- ●One soil character for all of Poplar Bluff
- ●Frost dates read at Poplar Bluff's scale: Mar 18 to Nov 17
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Poplar Bluff's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Poplar Bluff
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Poplar Bluff, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Poplar Bluff averages can't show:
We read public map data around Poplar Bluff — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Poplar Bluff average
How we know this about Poplar Bluff
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 Poplar Bluff’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 Poplar Bluff
When does frost risk typically end in Poplar Bluff?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Poplar Bluff typically lands around Mar 18, 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 8.
When is the first frost in Poplar Bluff?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Poplar Bluff typically arrives around Nov 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 3, so the watching starts about Oct 18 — about 244 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Poplar Bluff?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Poplar Bluff sees about 244 frost-free days — roughly Mar 18 through Nov 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 8 to Nov 3, about 209 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Poplar Bluff?
The federal record around Poplar Bluff is a meaningful one — 168 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (112), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Poplar Bluff?
From about Oct 18 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 17 (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 17. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Poplar Bluff's scale — its 7b band and its 244-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Poplar Bluff'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 Poplar Bluff’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Poplar Bluff's own scale — its own ~244-day season between 28°F freezes, the 8,642 acres it covers and 168 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Poplar Bluff's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Poplar Bluff's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 18 and Nov 17 and the ~244-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 168 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Poplar Bluff, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Poplar Bluff's boundary and the 8,642 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~244-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Poplar Bluff sits in the Ozark Highlands — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Poplar Bluff 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 Poplar Bluff's 8,642 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Butler County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Butler 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 Butler County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Poplar Bluff's 8,642 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Poplar Bluff you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 8,642 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 Poplar Bluff-wide figureread your own land →