Wilkshire Hills, Ohio, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Wilkshire 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 Wilkshire 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 Wilkshire Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Wilkshire Hills — the short answer
Wilkshire Hills, Ohio: USDA zone 6b, about 208 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 11
- 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
- ~208
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town 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 Wilkshire Hills's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Wilkshire Hills's 208-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Wilkshire Hills
Each reading below is measured for Wilkshire Hills itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredWilkshire Hills runs about 208 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
MeasuredWilkshire 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 Wilkshire Hills is in
Wilkshire Hills sits in the Western Allegheny Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Wilkshire Hills's own centroid rather than borrowed from Tuscarawas County.
What Grows in Wilkshire Hills
Every plant below cleared Wilkshire Hills's own zone 6b and its 208-day season. Each card opens that plant's Ohio profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Wilkshire 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 14; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 11 (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. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Wilkshire Hills
Spotted lanternfly documented 27 miles from Wilkshire Hills, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Wilkshire Hills
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Wilkshire Hills. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- DOLLAR GENERAL STORE #6157Brownfields · 0.5 mi
- GIANT EAGLE STORE #4016Brownfields · 0.6 mi
- Speedway # 6241Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- SPEEDWAY 6241Brownfields · 0.6 mi
- US ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS - BOLIVAR DAMBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- GTE NORTH, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- CHRYSLER FIRST BUSINESS CREDIT CUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- DAIRY MART #5324Underground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- TUSCARAWAS COUNTY COMMISSIONERSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- WILKSHIRE HILLS TREATMENT PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- BOLIVAR BELLSTORESUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- CC PERFORMANCEBrownfields · 1.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Wilkshire 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 Wilkshire Hills.
Total Sites
594
within ~10 miles of Wilkshire Hills
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
10 Superfund sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Wilkshire Hills
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Wilkshire Hills
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Wilkshire Hills, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Wilkshire Hills — Toxics Release Inventory (63 sites) and Superfund (10 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 Wilkshire 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 Wilkshire Hills average
Your land is one point inside Wilkshire Hills
Everything above resolves to Wilkshire Hills 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 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 Wilkshire Hills Average
Wilkshire Hills Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Wilkshire Hills
- ●One soil character for all of Wilkshire Hills
- ●Frost dates read at Wilkshire Hills's scale: Apr 11 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Wilkshire Hills's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Wilkshire Hills
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Wilkshire Hills, Ohio — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Wilkshire Hills averages can't show:
We read public map data around Wilkshire Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Wilkshire Hills average
How we know this about Wilkshire 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 Wilkshire 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 Wilkshire Hills
When does frost risk typically end in Wilkshire Hills?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Wilkshire Hills typically lands around Apr 11, 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 2.
When is the first frost in Wilkshire Hills?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Wilkshire Hills 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 208 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Wilkshire Hills?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Wilkshire Hills sees about 208 frost-free days — roughly Apr 11 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 2 to Oct 22, about 173 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Wilkshire Hills?
The federal record around Wilkshire Hills is a meaningful one — 594 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (261), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.5 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 Wilkshire Hills?
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 Wilkshire Hills's scale — its 6b band and its 208-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Wilkshire 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 Wilkshire Hills’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Wilkshire Hills's own scale — its own ~208-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,957 acres it covers and 594 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Wilkshire Hills's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Wilkshire Hills's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 11 and Nov 5 and the ~208-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 594 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Wilkshire Hills, the closest Brownfields record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Wilkshire Hills's boundary and the 2,957 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~208-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Wilkshire Hills's own centroid, the Western Allegheny PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Wilkshire Hillslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Wilkshire Hills's 2,957 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Tuscarawas County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Tuscarawas 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 Tuscarawas County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Wilkshire Hills's 2,957 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Wilkshire 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 2,957 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.5 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 Wilkshire Hills-wide figureread your own land →
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