Preston, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Growers here do well with cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Preston, 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 Preston 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 Preston — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Preston — the short answer
Preston, Missouri: USDA zone 6b, about 225 days between hard freezes, across 483 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~225
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 483 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 Preston's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Preston's 225-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Preston
Each reading below is measured for Preston itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPreston runs about 225 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
MeasuredPreston 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 Preston is in
Preston sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Preston's own centroid rather than borrowed from Hickory County.
What Grows in Preston
Every plant below cleared Preston's own zone 6b and its 225-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Preston?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 26; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 26 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 6 — 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 Preston
Survey cells within 31 miles of Preston checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 375 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Preston
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Preston. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- APPLEWOOD IN HOME HEALTH SERVICESUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- T37N R21W 23CBNitrate · 1200 ft
- PRESTON QUIK MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- PRESTON MAINT LOTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- SOUTHWEST ELECTRIC COOPERATIVEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- T37N R22W 22ADA1Nitrate · 1.8 mi
- HICKORY COUNTY R-I SCHOOLSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- Unknown - Lead BariteMining · 2.9 mi
- Unknown - Lead ZincMining · 3.0 mi
- Peterson MineMining · 3.2 mi
- TRADING POSTUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.4 mi
- BALANCED CARE HERMITAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Preston'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 Preston.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Preston
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Preston
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Preston, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Preston — Mining (15 sites) and Nitrate (20 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.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Preston
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 Preston average
Your land is one point inside Preston
Everything above resolves to Preston as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 483 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 Preston Average
Preston Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Preston
- ●One soil character for all of Preston
- ●Frost dates read at Preston's scale: Mar 26 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Preston's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Preston
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Preston, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Preston averages can't show:
We read public map data around Preston — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Preston average
How we know this about Preston
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 Preston’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 Preston
When does frost risk typically end in Preston?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Preston typically lands around Mar 26, 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 16.
When is the first frost in Preston?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Preston typically arrives around Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 23, so the watching starts about Oct 7 — about 225 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Preston?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Preston sees about 225 frost-free days — roughly Mar 26 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 16 to Oct 23, about 190 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Preston?
The federal record around Preston runs heavier than most — 60 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (24), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Preston?
From about Oct 7 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 6 (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 6. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Preston's scale — its 6b band and its 225-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Preston'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 Preston’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Preston's own scale — its own ~225-day season between 28°F freezes, the 483 acres it covers and 60 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Preston's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Preston's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 26 and Nov 6 and the ~225-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 60 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Preston, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Preston's boundary and the 483 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~225-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Preston's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Preston 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 Preston's 483 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Hickory County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Hickory 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 Hickory County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Preston's 483 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Preston you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 483 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Preston-wide figureread your own land →
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