Maple Heights, Ohio, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Growers here do well with cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Maple Heights, 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 Maple Heights 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 Maple Heights — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Maple Heights — the short answer
Maple Heights, Ohio: USDA zone 6b, about 223 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~223
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 3K 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 Maple Heights's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Maple Heights's 223-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Maple Heights
Each reading below is measured for Maple Heights itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMaple Heights runs about 223 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
MeasuredMaple Heights 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 Maple Heights is in
Maple Heights sits in the Erie Drift Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Maple Heights's own centroid rather than borrowed from Cuyahoga County.
What Grows in Maple Heights
Every plant below cleared Maple Heights's own zone 6b and its 223-day season. Each card opens that plant's Ohio profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Maple Heights?
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 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 6 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 15 — 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 Maple Heights
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Maple Heights, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Maple Heights
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Maple Heights. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- FAMILY DOLLAR #7628Brownfields · 400 ft
- D & J OPEN AIR MARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 500 ft
- TRIANGLE AUTOMOTIVE PARTS INCBrownfields · 950 ft
- SIMA MARINE SALES, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- METAL PROCESSING CORP.Underground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- BCS METAL PREP LLCToxics Release Inventory · 1200 ft
- FORMER UNOCALUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- UNO VEN #9376-203Underground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- REIDER'S STOP-N-SHOP #2Underground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- LUCAS AEROSPACE POWER EQUIPMENT CORPToxics Release Inventory · 1700 ft
- BLUE CORAL SLICK 50 LTDToxics Release Inventory · 1900 ft
- RISER FOODS, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Maple Heights'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 Maple Heights.
Total Sites
3,585
within ~10 miles of Maple Heights
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
59 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Maple Heights
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Maple Heights
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Maple Heights, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Maple Heights — Toxics Release Inventory (376 sites) and Superfund (59 sites). 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.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Maple Heights
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 Maple Heights average
Your land is one point inside Maple Heights
Everything above resolves to Maple Heights as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 Maple Heights Average
Maple Heights Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Maple Heights
- ●One soil character for all of Maple Heights
- ●Frost dates read at Maple Heights's scale: Apr 6 to Nov 15
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Maple Heights's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Maple Heights
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Maple Heights, Ohio — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Maple Heights averages can't show:
We read public map data around Maple Heights — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Maple Heights average
How we know this about Maple Heights
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 Maple Heights’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 Maple Heights
When does frost risk typically end in Maple Heights?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Maple Heights typically lands around Apr 6, 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 27.
When is the first frost in Maple Heights?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Maple Heights typically arrives around Nov 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 1, so the watching starts about Oct 16 — about 223 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Maple Heights?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Maple Heights sees about 223 frost-free days — roughly Apr 6 through Nov 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 27 to Nov 1, about 188 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Maple Heights?
The federal record around Maple Heights is a meaningful one — 3,585 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,863), the nearest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile 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 Maple Heights?
From about Oct 16 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 15 (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 15. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Maple Heights's scale — its 6b band and its 223-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Maple Heights'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 Maple Heights’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Maple Heights's own scale — its own ~223-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,308 acres it covers and 3,585 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Maple Heights's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Maple Heights's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 6 and Nov 15 and the ~223-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 3,585 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Maple Heights, the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Maple Heights's boundary and the 3,308 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~223-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Maple Heights's own centroid, the Erie Drift PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Maple Heightslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Maple Heights's 3,308 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cuyahoga County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cuyahoga 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 Cuyahoga County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Maple Heights's 3,308 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Maple Heights you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,308 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 Maple Heights-wide figureread your own land →