Webster Groves, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Webster Groves, 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 Webster Groves 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 Webster Groves — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Webster Groves — the short answer
Webster Groves, Missouri: USDA zone 7a, about 243 days between hard freezes, across 4K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~243
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 4K 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 Webster Groves's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Webster Groves's 243-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Webster Groves
Each reading below is measured for Webster Groves itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredWebster Groves runs about 243 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
MeasuredWebster Groves 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 Webster Groves is in
Webster Groves sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Webster Groves's own centroid rather than borrowed from St. Louis County.
What Grows in Webster Groves
Every plant below cleared Webster Groves's own zone 7a and its 243-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Webster Groves?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 20; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 20 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 18 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Webster Groves
Survey cells within 31 miles of Webster Groves checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 247 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Webster Groves
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Webster Groves. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- WEBSTER GROVES CENTRAL OFFICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- CVS PHARMACY #18024Brownfields · 1400 ft
- KANA LLC DBA WEBSTER GROVES BPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- CITGO ZEPHYR #143Underground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- JILL O'MARA STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- INTERNATIONAL AUTO CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- FUELMANUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- RUDIVANI PRECISION MOTORWORKSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- YOUNT'S RENTALUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- MR GASUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- RICE PAINTING CO INCBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- THE COFFEE GRINDERUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Webster Groves'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 Webster Groves.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Webster Groves
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Webster Groves
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Webster Groves, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Webster Groves — Toxics Release Inventory (317 sites) and Superfund (57 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Webster Groves
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 Webster Groves average
Your land is one point inside Webster Groves
Everything above resolves to Webster Groves as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 4K 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 Webster Groves Average
Webster Groves Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Webster Groves
- ●One soil character for all of Webster Groves
- ●Frost dates read at Webster Groves's scale: Mar 20 to Nov 18
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Webster Groves's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Webster Groves
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Webster Groves, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Webster Groves averages can't show:
We read public map data around Webster Groves — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Webster Groves average
How we know this about Webster Groves
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 Webster Groves’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 Webster Groves
When does frost risk typically end in Webster Groves?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Webster Groves typically lands around Mar 20, 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 10.
When is the first frost in Webster Groves?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Webster Groves typically arrives around Nov 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 4, so the watching starts about Oct 19 — about 243 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Webster Groves?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Webster Groves sees about 243 frost-free days — roughly Mar 20 through Nov 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 10 to Nov 4, about 208 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Webster Groves?
The federal record around Webster Groves runs heavier than most — 4,151 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (2,488), 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 Webster Groves?
From about Oct 19 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 18 (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 18. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Webster Groves's scale — its 7a band and its 243-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Webster Groves'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 Webster Groves’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Webster Groves's own scale — its own ~243-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,784 acres it covers and 4,151 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Webster Groves's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Webster Groves's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 20 and Nov 18 and the ~243-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 4,151 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Webster Groves, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Webster Groves's boundary and the 3,784 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~243-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Webster Groves's own centroid, the Interior River Valleys and HillsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Webster Groves 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 Webster Groves's 3,784 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom St. Louis County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom St. Louis 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 St. Louis County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Webster Groves's 3,784 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Webster Groves you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,784 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 Webster Groves-wide figureread your own land →
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