Kirtland Hills, Ohio, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Kirtland Hills, 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 Kirtland Hills 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 Kirtland Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Kirtland Hills — the short answer
Kirtland Hills, Ohio: USDA zone 6b, about 218 days between hard freezes, across 4K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 13
- 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
- ~218
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town 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 6b is Kirtland Hills's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Kirtland Hills's 218-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Kirtland Hills
Each reading below is measured for Kirtland Hills itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredKirtland Hills runs about 218 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
MeasuredKirtland Hills 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 Kirtland Hills is in
Kirtland Hills sits in the Erie Drift Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Kirtland Hills's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Lake County is mostly Eastern Great Lakes Lowlands. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Kirtland Hills
Every plant below cleared Kirtland Hills's own zone 6b and its 218-day season. Each card opens that plant's Ohio profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Kirtland Hills?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 16; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 13 (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. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Kirtland Hills
Spotted lanternfly documented 13 miles from Kirtland Hills, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Kirtland Hills
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Kirtland Hills. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- KIRTLAND HILLS VILLAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- MRS. ROBERT I. GALE, JR.Underground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- CLEVELAND CLINIC MENTOR HOSPITALBrownfields · 1.3 mi
- EMERGENCY OPERATIONS CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- AVERY DENNISON CORPORATION FASSON ROLL N. AMERICA B#22 (0243081365)Brownfields · 1.5 mi
- LAKELAND COMMUNITY COLLEGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- KIRTLAND SHENANDOAH ESTATES STPBrownfields · 2.0 mi
- CITY OF KIRTLANDUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- KIRTLAND SUNOCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- KIRTLAND BOARD OF EDUCATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- DOLLAR GENERAL STORE #10613Brownfields · 2.1 mi
- BP OIL CO. #04812Underground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Kirtland Hills'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 Kirtland Hills.
Total Sites
1,126
within ~10 miles of Kirtland Hills
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
9 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Kirtland Hills
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Kirtland Hills
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Kirtland Hills, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 148 sites within ~10 miles of Kirtland Hills. 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.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Kirtland Hills
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 Kirtland Hills average
Your land is one point inside Kirtland Hills
Everything above resolves to Kirtland Hills 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 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 Kirtland Hills Average
Kirtland Hills Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Kirtland Hills
- ●One soil character for all of Kirtland Hills
- ●Frost dates read at Kirtland Hills's scale: Apr 13 to Nov 17
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Kirtland Hills's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Kirtland Hills
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Kirtland Hills, Ohio — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Kirtland Hills averages can't show:
We read public map data around Kirtland Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Kirtland Hills average
How we know this about Kirtland Hills
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 Kirtland Hills’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 Kirtland Hills
When does frost risk typically end in Kirtland Hills?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Kirtland Hills typically lands around Apr 13, 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 4.
When is the first frost in Kirtland Hills?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Kirtland Hills 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 218 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Kirtland Hills?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Kirtland Hills sees about 218 frost-free days — roughly Apr 13 through Nov 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 4 to Nov 3, about 183 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Kirtland Hills?
The federal record around Kirtland Hills is a meaningful one — 1,126 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (483), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.1 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 Kirtland Hills?
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 Kirtland Hills's scale — its 6b band and its 218-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Kirtland Hills'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 Kirtland Hills’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Kirtland Hills's own scale — its own ~218-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,565 acres it covers and 1,126 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Kirtland Hills's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Kirtland Hills's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 13 and Nov 17 and the ~218-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,126 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Kirtland Hills, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Kirtland Hills's boundary and the 3,565 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~218-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Kirtland Hills sits in the Erie Drift Plain — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Kirtland Hillslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Kirtland Hills's 3,565 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Lake County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Lake 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 Lake County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Kirtland Hills's 3,565 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Kirtland Hills you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,565 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.1 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 Kirtland Hills-wide figureread your own land →
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