Willow Springs, 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 Willow Springs, 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 Willow Springs 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 Willow Springs — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Willow Springs — the short answer
Willow Springs, Missouri: USDA zone 7a, about 231 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~231
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 2K 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 Willow Springs's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Willow Springs's 231-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Willow Springs
Each reading below is measured for Willow Springs itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredWillow Springs runs about 231 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
MeasuredWillow Springs 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 Willow Springs is in
Willow Springs sits in the Ozark Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Willow Springs's own centroid rather than borrowed from Howell County.
What Grows in Willow Springs
Every plant below cleared Willow Springs's own zone 7a and its 231-day season. Each card opens that plant's Missouri profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Willow Springs?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 25; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 25 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 11 — 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 Willow Springs
Survey cells within 31 miles of Willow Springs checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 298 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Willow Springs
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Willow Springs. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- WILLOW SPRINGS PETRO CARDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- G & S STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- UPS WILLOW SPRINGSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- THE LITTLE STORE INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- UNITED PARCEL SERVICEBrownfields · 2100 ft
- BROTHERS AUTOMOTIVEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- HOMETOWN REALTY PROPERTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- WILLOW SPRINGS COUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- T27N R09W 29BBB1Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- SOUTHWESTERN BELLUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- J & A ENTERPRISESUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- CITY OF WILLOW SPRINGS MAINT SHEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Willow Springs'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 Willow Springs.
Total Sites
52
within ~10 miles of Willow Springs
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
2 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Willow Springs
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Willow Springs
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Willow Springs, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 18 sites within ~10 miles of Willow Springs. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
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 Willow Springs
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 Willow Springs average
Your land is one point inside Willow Springs
Everything above resolves to Willow Springs as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 Willow Springs Average
Willow Springs Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Willow Springs
- ●One soil character for all of Willow Springs
- ●Frost dates read at Willow Springs's scale: Mar 25 to Nov 11
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Willow Springs's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Willow Springs
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Willow Springs, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Willow Springs averages can't show:
We read public map data around Willow Springs — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Willow Springs average
How we know this about Willow Springs
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 Willow Springs’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 Willow Springs
When does frost risk typically end in Willow Springs?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Willow Springs typically lands around Mar 25, 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 15.
When is the first frost in Willow Springs?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Willow Springs typically arrives around Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 28, so the watching starts about Oct 12 — about 231 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Willow Springs?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Willow Springs sees about 231 frost-free days — roughly Mar 25 through Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 15 to Oct 28, about 196 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Willow Springs?
The federal record around Willow Springs shows 52 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (24), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Willow Springs?
From about Oct 12 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 11 (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 11. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Willow Springs's scale — its 7a band and its 231-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Willow Springs'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 Willow Springs’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Willow Springs's own scale — its own ~231-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,313 acres it covers and 52 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Willow Springs's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Willow Springs's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 25 and Nov 11 and the ~231-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 52 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Willow Springs, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Willow Springs's boundary and the 2,313 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~231-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Willow Springs's own centroid, the Ozark HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Willow Springs 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 Willow Springs's 2,313 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Howell County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Howell 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 Howell County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Willow Springs's 2,313 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Willow Springs you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,313 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 Willow Springs-wide figureread your own land →
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