La Rue, Ohio, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
These conditions suit cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in La Rue, 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 La Rue 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 La Rue — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
La Rue — the short answer
La Rue, Ohio: USDA zone 6a, about 209 days between hard freezes, across 306 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~209
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 306 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 La Rue's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against La Rue's 209-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in La Rue
Each reading below is measured for La Rue itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLa Rue runs about 209 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
MeasuredLa Rue 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 La Rue is in
La Rue sits in the Eastern Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at La Rue's own centroid rather than borrowed from Marion County.
What Grows in La Rue
Every plant below cleared La Rue's own zone 6a and its 209-day season. Each card opens that plant's Ohio profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in La Rue?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 10 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 5 — 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 La Rue
Survey cells within 31 miles of La Rue checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 43 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near La Rue
Closest first, within ~10 miles of La Rue. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- GTE NORTH, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 250 ft
- FORMER MARATHON STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 250 ft
- ELGIN WEST ELEMENTARY SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- COUNTRY FOLKS SERVICES-LARUEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- NEW BLOOMINGTON LANDMARKUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
- MARATHONUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.1 mi
- BUCKEYE EGG FARM L P MT VICTORY LAYERToxics Release Inventory · 4.4 mi
- BUCKEYE EGG FARM GOSHEN PULLETToxics Release Inventory · 4.6 mi
- RIALTO FARMSUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.8 mi
- CARMENS PLACEUnderground Storage Tanks · 5.9 mi
- CERTIFIED OIL CO. #443Underground Storage Tanks · 6.5 mi
- JOHN BENNETTBrownfields · 6.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from La Rue'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 La Rue.
Total Sites
31
within ~10 miles of La Rue
Risk Level
Low
Highest-severity
5 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of La Rue
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of La Rue
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around La Rue, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 5 sites within ~10 miles of La Rue. 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 La Rue
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 La Rue average
Your land is one point inside La Rue
Everything above resolves to La Rue as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 306 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 La Rue Average
La Rue Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across La Rue
- ●One soil character for all of La Rue
- ●Frost dates read at La Rue's scale: Apr 10 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not La Rue's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in La Rue
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in La Rue, Ohio — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that La Rue averages can't show:
We read public map data around La Rue — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the La Rue average
How we know this about La Rue
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 La Rue’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 La Rue
When does frost risk typically end in La Rue?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in La Rue typically lands around Apr 10, 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 1.
When is the first frost in La Rue?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in La Rue typically arrives around Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 22, so the watching starts about Oct 6 — about 209 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in La Rue?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, La Rue sees about 209 frost-free days — roughly Apr 10 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 1 to Oct 22, about 174 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in La Rue?
The federal record around La Rue is light — 31 documented sites across the 9 federal source types we checked, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (16), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out — and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. Growing food here starts from a strong position; a soil test before new food beds settles any site-specific question.
How do I protect my plants from frost in La Rue?
From about Oct 6 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 5 (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 5. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at La Rue's scale — its 6a band and its 209-day season. Your yard writes its own version of La Rue'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 La Rue’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at La Rue's own scale — its own ~209-day season between 28°F freezes, the 306 acres it covers and 31 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- La Rue's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- La Rue's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 10 and Nov 5 and the ~209-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 31 documented contamination sites on the federal record near La Rue, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- La Rue's boundary and the 306 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~209-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at La Rue's own centroid, the Eastern Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around La Rue 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 La Rue's 306 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Marion County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Marion 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 Marion County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among La Rue's 306 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of La Rue you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 306 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 La Rue-wide figureread your own land →
More in Ohio
Wider growing context
What grows across OhioLa Rue sits outside our named growing regions, so Ohio as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides