Verona, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Verona, 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 Verona 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 Verona — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Verona — the short answer
Verona, Missouri: USDA zone 7a, about 219 days between hard freezes, across 556 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~219
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 556 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 7a is Verona's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Verona's 219-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Verona
Each reading below is measured for Verona itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredVerona runs about 219 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
MeasuredVerona sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Verona is in
Verona sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Verona's own centroid rather than borrowed from Lawrence County.
What Grows in Verona
Every plant below cleared Verona's own zone 7a and its 219-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Verona?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. 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 Nov 5 — 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.
What's on the federal record near Verona
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Verona. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BCP INGREDIENTSBrownfields · 2400 ft
- BCP INGREDIENTSToxics Release Inventory · 2400 ft
- SYNTEX FACILITYSuperfund · 2500 ft
- SYNTEX FACILITYBrownfields · 2500 ft
- AMERICAN DEHYDRATED FOODS INC SOUTH PLANTToxics Release Inventory · 0.6 mi
- SPRING RIVER BASIN SUBSITE (SYNTEX)Superfund · 0.9 mi
- Unknown - Lead & ZincMining · 0.9 mi
- Unknown - ZincMining · 1.2 mi
- Browning ShaftMining · 1.2 mi
- CARLA HURNCAFO · 1.6 mi
- KRISTEK FARMS INC.CAFO · 2.2 mi
- OAK GROVE FARMSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Verona'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 Verona.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Verona
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Verona
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Verona, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Verona — Mining (281 sites) and CAFO (16 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.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Check your specific parcel in Verona
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 Verona average
Your land is one point inside Verona
Everything above resolves to Verona as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 556 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 Verona Average
Verona Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Verona
- ●One soil character for all of Verona
- ●Frost dates read at Verona's scale: Mar 31 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Verona's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Verona
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Verona, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Verona averages can't show:
We read public map data around Verona — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Verona average
How we know this about Verona
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 Verona’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 Verona
When does frost risk typically end in Verona?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Verona 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 Verona?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Verona typically arrives around Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 22, so the watching starts about Oct 6 — about 219 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Verona?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Verona sees about 219 frost-free days — roughly Mar 31 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 21 to Oct 22, about 184 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Verona?
The federal record around Verona runs heavier than most — 529 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (281), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.4 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 Verona?
From about Oct 6 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 5 (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 5. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Verona's scale — its 7a band and its 219-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Verona'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 Verona’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Verona's own scale — its own ~219-day season between 28°F freezes, the 556 acres it covers and 529 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Verona's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Verona's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 31 and Nov 5 and the ~219-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 529 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Verona, the closest Brownfields record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Verona's boundary and the 556 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~219-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Verona's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Verona's 556 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Lawrence County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Lawrence 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 Lawrence County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Verona's 556 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Verona you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 556 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.4 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 Verona-wide figureread your own land →
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