Wayne Lakes, Ohio, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Wayne 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 Wayne 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 Wayne Lakes — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Wayne Lakes — the short answer
Wayne Lakes, Ohio: USDA zone 6a, about 201 days between hard freezes, across 340 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)
- Oct 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~201
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 340 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 Wayne Lakes's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Wayne Lakes's 201-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Wayne Lakes
Each reading below is measured for Wayne Lakes itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredWayne Lakes runs about 201 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
MeasuredWayne 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 Wayne Lakes is in
Wayne Lakes sits in the Eastern Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Wayne Lakes's own centroid rather than borrowed from Darke County.
What Grows in Wayne Lakes
Every plant below cleared Wayne Lakes's own zone 6a and its 201-day season. Each card opens that plant's Ohio profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Wayne Lakes?
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 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 Oct 28 — 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 Wayne Lakes
Survey cells within 31 miles of Wayne Lakes checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 42 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Wayne Lakes
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Wayne Lakes. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- WAYNE LAKES GATE HOUSEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- SHAFFERS GROCERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- ROYAL CREST DISTRIBUTORS, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- VALLEY ASPHALT-WALLS FORT JEFFERSONBrownfields · 1.2 mi
- SHAMROCK MATERIALS FT JEFFERSON LIMESTONEBrownfields · 1.3 mi
- SCHULTZ MOTORSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- D-176 MIAM NAWQA LUS WELL BVAS AG-11Nitrate · 2.4 mi
- REBSCO INCBrownfields · 2.6 mi
- PETEY'S PIZZAUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- DARKE COUNTY HOMEUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.3 mi
- D-175 MIAM NAWQA LUS WELL BVAS AG-10Nitrate · 3.4 mi
- CRIMINAL JUSTICE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Wayne 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 Wayne Lakes.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Wayne Lakes
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Wayne Lakes
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Wayne Lakes, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Wayne Lakes — Superfund (4 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (17 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Wayne 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 Wayne Lakes average
Your land is one point inside Wayne Lakes
Everything above resolves to Wayne Lakes as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 340 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 Wayne Lakes Average
Wayne Lakes Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Wayne Lakes
- ●One soil character for all of Wayne Lakes
- ●Frost dates read at Wayne Lakes's scale: Apr 10 to Oct 28
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Wayne Lakes's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Wayne Lakes
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Wayne Lakes, Ohio — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Wayne Lakes averages can't show:
We read public map data around Wayne Lakes — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Wayne Lakes average
How we know this about Wayne 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 Wayne 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 Wayne Lakes
When does frost risk typically end in Wayne Lakes?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Wayne Lakes 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 Wayne Lakes?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Wayne Lakes typically arrives around Oct 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 14, so the watching starts about Sep 28 — about 201 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Wayne Lakes?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Wayne Lakes sees about 201 frost-free days — roughly Apr 10 through Oct 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 1 to Oct 14, about 166 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Wayne Lakes?
The federal record around Wayne Lakes is a meaningful one — 217 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (83), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Wayne Lakes?
From about Sep 28 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 28 (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 28. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Wayne Lakes's scale — its 6a band and its 201-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Wayne 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 Wayne Lakes’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Wayne Lakes's own scale — its own ~201-day season between 28°F freezes, the 340 acres it covers and 217 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Wayne Lakes's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Wayne Lakes's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 10 and Oct 28 and the ~201-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 217 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Wayne Lakes, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Wayne Lakes's boundary and the 340 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~201-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Wayne Lakes's own centroid, the Eastern Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Wayne Lakes 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 Wayne Lakes's 340 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Darke County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Darke 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 Darke County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Wayne Lakes's 340 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Wayne 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 340 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Wayne Lakes-wide figureread your own land →
More in Ohio
Wider growing context
What grows across OhioWayne Lakes sits outside our named growing regions, so Ohio as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides