Rolla, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Rolla, 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 Rolla 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 Rolla — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Rolla — the short answer
Rolla, Missouri: USDA zone 6b, about 224 days between hard freezes, across 8K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 27
- 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
- ~224
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 8K 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 Rolla's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Rolla's 224-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Rolla
Each reading below is measured for Rolla itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredRolla runs about 224 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
MeasuredRolla 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 Rolla is in
Rolla sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Rolla's own centroid rather than borrowed from Phelps County.
What Grows in Rolla
Every plant below cleared Rolla's own zone 6b and its 224-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Rolla?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 27; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 27 (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. 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.
Documented around Rolla
Survey cells within 31 miles of Rolla checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 306 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Rolla
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Rolla. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ROLLA TEXACOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- CASEYS GENERAL STORE #2204Underground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- ROLLA #31 TRANSPORTATION DEPTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- KERR-MCGEE #6700 - SOLD IN 91Underground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- ROLLA BER JUAN PARK STORAGE BARN CITY OFBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- T37N R08W 12DAB1Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- ROLLA FARMERS EXCHANGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- DELANO SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- MPC 41Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- FORUM CLEANERS-ROLLABrownfields · 0.6 mi
- P & B INVESTMENTS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- DELANO STATION BREAKUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Rolla'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 Rolla.
Total Sites
250
within ~10 miles of Rolla
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
7 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Rolla
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Rolla
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Rolla, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 86 sites within ~10 miles of Rolla. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Rolla
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 Rolla average
Your land is one point inside Rolla
Everything above resolves to Rolla as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 8K 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 Rolla Average
Rolla Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Rolla
- ●One soil character for all of Rolla
- ●Frost dates read at Rolla's scale: Mar 27 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Rolla's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Rolla
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Rolla, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Rolla averages can't show:
We read public map data around Rolla — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Rolla average
How we know this about Rolla
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 Rolla’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 Rolla
When does frost risk typically end in Rolla?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Rolla typically lands around Mar 27, 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 17.
When is the first frost in Rolla?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Rolla 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 224 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Rolla?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Rolla sees about 224 frost-free days — roughly Mar 27 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 17 to Oct 23, about 189 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Rolla?
The federal record around Rolla is a meaningful one — 250 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (113), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles 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 Rolla?
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 Rolla's scale — its 6b band and its 224-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Rolla'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 Rolla’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Rolla's own scale — its own ~224-day season between 28°F freezes, the 7,759 acres it covers and 250 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Rolla's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Rolla's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 27 and Nov 6 and the ~224-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 250 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Rolla, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Rolla's boundary and the 7,759 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~224-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Rolla's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Rolla 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 Rolla's 7,759 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Phelps County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Phelps 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 Phelps County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Rolla's 7,759 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Rolla you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 7,759 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Rolla-wide figureread your own land →
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