Holiday Lakes, Ohio, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Holiday Lakes, 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 Holiday Lakes 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 Holiday Lakes — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Holiday Lakes — the short answer
Holiday Lakes, Ohio: USDA zone 6a, about 198 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~198
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 6a is Holiday Lakes's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Holiday Lakes's 198-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Holiday Lakes
Each reading below is measured for Holiday Lakes itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredHoliday Lakes runs about 198 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredHoliday Lakes sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
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 Holiday Lakes is in
Holiday Lakes sits in the Eastern Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Holiday Lakes's own centroid rather than borrowed from Huron County.
What Grows in Holiday Lakes
Every plant below cleared Holiday Lakes's own zone 6a and its 198-day season. Each card opens that plant's Ohio profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Holiday Lakes?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 19; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 16 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 31 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Even past midsummer there is room for a true fall garden here, and garlic planted near the close carries the momentum into next year.
Documented around Holiday Lakes
Spotted lanternfly documented 24 miles from Holiday Lakes, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Holiday Lakes
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Holiday Lakes. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- HOLIDAY LAKES PROP OWNERS ASSN.Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- NORW - SOUTH DISTRICTPFAS · 1.3 mi
- WILLARD CITYPFAS · 1.3 mi
- ST JOHNSBURY TRUCKINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- CITY OF WILLARDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- WILLARD FORDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- FIRESTONEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- BP OIL CO. #05374Underground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- CSX TRANSPORTATION INCBrownfields · 2.3 mi
- CSX WILLARD TERMINAL STYRENE RELEASESuperfund · 2.3 mi
- RAILWAY ICE PLANTToxics Release Inventory · 2.3 mi
- RAILWAY ICE HOUSEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Holiday Lakes'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 Holiday Lakes.
Total Sites
96
within ~10 miles of Holiday Lakes
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Holiday Lakes
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Holiday Lakes
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Holiday Lakes, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 9 sites within ~10 miles of Holiday Lakes. 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.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Holiday Lakes
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 Holiday Lakes average
Your land is one point inside Holiday Lakes
Everything above resolves to Holiday Lakes as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Holiday Lakes Average
Holiday Lakes Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Holiday Lakes
- ●One soil character for all of Holiday Lakes
- ●Frost dates read at Holiday Lakes's scale: Apr 16 to Oct 31
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Holiday Lakes's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Holiday Lakes
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Holiday Lakes, Ohio — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Holiday Lakes averages can't show:
We read public map data around Holiday Lakes — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Holiday Lakes average
How we know this about Holiday Lakes
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 Holiday Lakes’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 Holiday Lakes
When does frost risk typically end in Holiday Lakes?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Holiday Lakes typically lands around Apr 16, 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 May 7.
When is the first frost in Holiday Lakes?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Holiday Lakes typically arrives around Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 17, so the watching starts about Oct 1 — about 198 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Holiday Lakes?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Holiday Lakes sees about 198 frost-free days — roughly Apr 16 through Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 7 to Oct 17, about 163 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Holiday Lakes?
The federal record around Holiday Lakes is a meaningful one — 96 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (58), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 miles out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Holiday Lakes?
From about Oct 1 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 Oct 31 (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 Oct 31. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Holiday Lakes's scale — its 6a band and its 198-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Holiday Lakes'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 Holiday Lakes’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Holiday Lakes's own scale — its own ~198-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,109 acres it covers and 96 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Holiday Lakes's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Holiday Lakes's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 16 and Oct 31 and the ~198-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 96 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Holiday Lakes, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Holiday Lakes's boundary and the 1,109 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~198-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Holiday Lakes's own centroid, the Eastern Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Holiday Lakeslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Holiday Lakes's 1,109 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Huron County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Huron County
- The growing challenges every Ohio grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Ohio
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Huron County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Holiday Lakes's 1,109 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Holiday Lakes you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,109 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 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 Holiday Lakes-wide figureread your own land →
More in Ohio
Wider growing context
What grows across OhioHoliday Lakes sits outside our named growing regions, so Ohio as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides