Wellston, Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Wellston, 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 Wellston 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 Wellston — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Wellston — the short answer
Wellston, Missouri: USDA zone 7a, about 241 days between hard freezes, across 596 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~241
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 596 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 Wellston's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Wellston's 241-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Wellston
Each reading below is measured for Wellston itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredWellston runs about 241 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
MeasuredWellston 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 Wellston is in
Wellston sits in the Interior River Valleys and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Wellston's own centroid rather than borrowed from St. Louis County.
What Grows in Wellston
Every plant below cleared Wellston's own zone 7a and its 241-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Wellston?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 21; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 21 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 17 — 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 Wellston
Survey cells within 31 miles of Wellston checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 240 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Wellston
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Wellston. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- A & A AUTOMOTIVE REPAIRUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- ABEX CORPORATION AMSCO FACILITYUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- MOOG AUTOMOTIVE INC.Brownfields · 950 ft
- MOOG AUTOMOTIVE, INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- UNION ELECTRIC COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- COLEMAN-TAYLOR TRANSMISSIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- AMERENUE PAGE COMPLEXBrownfields · 1600 ft
- BROWN AUTO BODY INCBrownfields · 1700 ft
- WALLACH IRON AND METAL COToxics Release Inventory · 1900 ft
- HILL BEHAN LUMBER COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- FAMILY DOLLAR # 5929Brownfields · 1900 ft
- HRM AMOCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Wellston'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 Wellston.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Wellston
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Wellston
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Wellston, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Wellston — Superfund (85 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (377 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Wellston
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 Wellston average
Your land is one point inside Wellston
Everything above resolves to Wellston as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 596 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 Wellston Average
Wellston Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Wellston
- ●One soil character for all of Wellston
- ●Frost dates read at Wellston's scale: Mar 21 to Nov 17
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Wellston's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Wellston
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Wellston, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Wellston averages can't show:
We read public map data around Wellston — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Wellston average
How we know this about Wellston
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 Wellston’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 Wellston
When does frost risk typically end in Wellston?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Wellston typically lands around Mar 21, 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 11.
When is the first frost in Wellston?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Wellston typically arrives around Nov 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 3, so the watching starts about Oct 18 — about 241 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Wellston?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Wellston sees about 241 frost-free days — roughly Mar 21 through Nov 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 11 to Nov 3, about 206 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Wellston?
The federal record around Wellston runs heavier than most — 4,744 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (2,900), 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 Wellston?
From about Oct 18 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 17 (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 17. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Wellston's scale — its 7a band and its 241-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Wellston'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 Wellston’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Wellston's own scale — its own ~241-day season between 28°F freezes, the 596 acres it covers and 4,744 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Wellston's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Wellston's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 21 and Nov 17 and the ~241-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 4,744 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Wellston, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Wellston's boundary and the 596 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~241-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Wellston's own centroid, the Interior River Valleys and HillsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Wellston 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 Wellston's 596 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 Wellston's 596 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Wellston you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 596 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 Wellston-wide figureread your own land →
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