Millwood, Washington, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
These conditions suit cabbage, pawpaw, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Millwood, 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 Millwood 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 Millwood — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Millwood — the short answer
Millwood, Washington: USDA zone 7a, about 205 days between hard freezes, across 445 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~205
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 445 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 7a is Millwood's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Millwood's 205-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Millwood
Each reading below is measured for Millwood itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMillwood runs about 205 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
MeasuredMillwood sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Millwood is in
Millwood sits in the Northern Rockies — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northwestern Forested Mountains. That is read at Millwood's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Spokane County is mostly Columbia Plateau. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Millwood
Every plant below cleared Millwood's own zone 7a and its 205-day season. Each card opens that plant's Washington profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Millwood?
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 10; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 7 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 29 — 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.
What's on the federal record near Millwood
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Millwood. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 25N/44E-05R01Nitrate · 300 ft
- INLAND EMPIRE PAPER COUnderground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- 25N/44E-08D01Nitrate · 600 ft
- SPOKANE COUNTY CONSTRUCTION SITEUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- INLAND EMPIRE PAPERToxics Release Inventory · 850 ft
- INLAND EMPIRE PAPERBrownfields · 850 ft
- 7-ELEVEN STORE 2301-14424DUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- THE CAR DOCTORUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- WALGREENS 7846Brownfields · 1600 ft
- MOBIL #62504Underground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- MARTIN'S AUTO SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- RYDER TRANSPORTATION SERVICESUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Millwood'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 Millwood.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Millwood
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Millwood
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
Check your specific parcel in Millwood
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 Millwood average
Your land is one point inside Millwood
Everything above resolves to Millwood as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 445 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 Millwood Average
Millwood Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Millwood
- ●One soil character for all of Millwood
- ●Frost dates read at Millwood's scale: Apr 7 to Oct 29
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Millwood's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Millwood
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Millwood, Washington — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Millwood averages can't show:
We read public map data around Millwood — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Millwood average
How we know this about Millwood
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 Millwood’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 Millwood
When does frost risk typically end in Millwood?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Millwood typically lands around Apr 7, 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 28.
When is the first frost in Millwood?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Millwood typically arrives around Oct 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 15, so the watching starts about Sep 29 — about 205 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Millwood?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Millwood sees about 205 frost-free days — roughly Apr 7 through Oct 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 28 to Oct 15, about 170 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Millwood?
The federal record around Millwood runs heavier than most — 1,652 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (968), the nearest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Millwood?
From about Sep 29 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 29 (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 29. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Millwood's scale — its 7a band and its 205-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Millwood'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 Millwood’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Millwood's own scale — its own ~205-day season between 28°F freezes, the 445 acres it covers and 1,652 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Millwood's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Millwood's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 7 and Oct 29 and the ~205-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,652 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Millwood, the closest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Millwood's boundary and the 445 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~205-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Millwood sits in the Northern Rockies — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Millwood's 445 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Spokane County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Spokane County
- The growing challenges every Washington grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Washington
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Spokane County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Millwood's 445 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Millwood you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 445 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate 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 Millwood-wide figureread your own land →