Villa Ridge, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
The conditions favor cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Villa Ridge, 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 Villa Ridge 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 Villa Ridge — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Villa Ridge — the short answer
Villa Ridge, Missouri: USDA zone 6b, about 219 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~219
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 3K 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 Villa Ridge's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Villa Ridge's 219-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Villa Ridge
Each reading below is measured for Villa Ridge itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredVilla Ridge 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
MeasuredVilla Ridge 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 Villa Ridge is in
Villa Ridge sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Villa Ridge's own centroid rather than borrowed from Franklin County.
What Grows in Villa Ridge
Every plant below cleared Villa Ridge's own zone 6b and its 219-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Villa Ridge?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 29 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 3 — 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 Villa Ridge
Survey cells within 31 miles of Villa Ridge checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 270 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Villa Ridge
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Villa Ridge. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- FRANKLIN COUNTY PWSD 3PFAS · 2100 ft
- VILLA RIDGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- FOWLERS AUTO SALESUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- VILLA RIDGE PETRO MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- PETRO MART #50Underground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- MR FUEL #2Underground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- TRI COUNTY MARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- WAYSIDE LIQUORUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- VILLA RIDGE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- WAYSIDE SOUTH LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- RED BARN TRAILER COURTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- T'S ONE STOP(F) KWIK KORNER (P)Underground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Villa Ridge'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 Villa Ridge.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Villa Ridge
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Villa Ridge
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Villa Ridge, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Villa Ridge — Toxics Release Inventory (39 sites) and PFAS (5 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Villa Ridge
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 Villa Ridge average
Your land is one point inside Villa Ridge
Everything above resolves to Villa Ridge as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 Villa Ridge Average
Villa Ridge Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Villa Ridge
- ●One soil character for all of Villa Ridge
- ●Frost dates read at Villa Ridge's scale: Mar 29 to Nov 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Villa Ridge's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Villa Ridge
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Villa Ridge, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Villa Ridge averages can't show:
We read public map data around Villa Ridge — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Villa Ridge average
How we know this about Villa Ridge
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 Villa Ridge’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 Villa Ridge
When does frost risk typically end in Villa Ridge?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Villa Ridge typically lands around Mar 29, 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 19.
When is the first frost in Villa Ridge?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Villa Ridge typically arrives around Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 20, so the watching starts about Oct 4 — about 219 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Villa Ridge?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Villa Ridge sees about 219 frost-free days — roughly Mar 29 through Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 19 to Oct 20, about 184 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Villa Ridge?
The federal record around Villa Ridge runs heavier than most — 355 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (168), the nearest PFAS 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 Villa Ridge?
From about Oct 4 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 3 (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 3. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Villa Ridge's scale — its 6b band and its 219-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Villa Ridge'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 Villa Ridge’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Villa Ridge's own scale — its own ~219-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,145 acres it covers and 355 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Villa Ridge's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Villa Ridge's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 29 and Nov 3 and the ~219-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 355 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Villa Ridge, the closest PFAS record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Villa Ridge's boundary and the 3,145 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~219-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Villa Ridge's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Villa Ridge 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 Villa Ridge's 3,145 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 Villa Ridge's 3,145 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Villa Ridge you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,145 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest PFAS 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 Villa Ridge-wide figureread your own land →
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