The Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes) spans USDA hardiness zones 4b-5a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
The only true mountain regime in Maine. Franklin County runs just a 143-day growing season in zone 4b — the coldest, shortest-season part of the state outside Aroostook — because high elevation plus valley cold-air pooling in the High Peaks and Rangeley Lakes country pushes last frosts into late May and first frosts into early September. That is a short, sharp mountain season that neither Maine's milder coast nor Aroostook's flat lowland potato country shares, and it changes what you can start from seed, when you transplant, and which long-season crops need a head start indoors. Well-matched crops include potato, kale, blueberry, and apple, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
The Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes) spans Maine.
Your yard isn't all of the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes).
The Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes) spans USDA zones 4b-5a, but your parcel sits in exactly one — and slope, tree cover, and low spots nudge it further. 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 Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes) — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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The Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes) — the short answer
The Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes): USDA zones 4b-5a, 143–161 frost-free days, in Maine.
- USDA zones
- 4b-5a
- USDA PHZM 2023, aggregated over the footprint
- Frost-free season
- 143–161 days
- NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- Counties
- 2
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Region type
- County cluster
- Growable Ground growing-region registry
Region boundary: Growable Ground growing-region registry — curated county clusters, EPA Level III ecoregions, and town clusters drawn finer than any county. Where a region publishes no measured season, no season figure is shown.
Hardiness Zone Range
What Grows in the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes)
Plants matched to the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes)'s USDA zones 4b-5a, ordered by how much hardiness margin each has across the region — the ones with room to spare at both ends of this band lead. Each links to its full growing profile.
Native Plants of the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes)
Plants the USDA PLANTS Database documents as native and present in this region’s state, kept only where the published hardiness range meets the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes)’s USDA zones 4b-5a — closest range match first. Presence is recorded by state, so a plant can be documented across the state and still be scarce in your corner of the region.
The ground across the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes)
The USDA soil survey maps this ground county by county. These are those records weighted by land area across two member counties — this region’s own profile, not a state figure.
The ground is predominantly Spodosols, at 84% of mapped acres, followed by Inceptisols (10%), Histosols (5%) and Entisols (1%). The most extensive named soils are Colonel, Skerry, and Peru.
32% of those acres are well drained, and another 21% moderately well drained, 16% somewhat poorly drained. Topsoil pH runs 4.3–5.0 between the lowest and the highest county on record. 2% of the footprint is classed prime farmland.
Soil order
Spodosols
Drainage
Well drained
Topsoil pH
4.3–5.0
Hydric soils
13%
Soil changes across a driveway, so which of these your own ground sits on is a parcel question rather than a regional one. Franklin County holds the most wetland ground here, at 15% — soil types explained.
USDA NRCS SSURGO via Soil Data Access
What this means for growing in the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes)
The soil survey reads this ground county by county, and the readings above are those records summed across the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes). Here is what they mean for a garden here — and the move an experienced grower makes about each one.
Drainage
From county records32% of the mapped acres across the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes) are well drained — ground that drains quickly. That is area-weighted across all two of its mapped counties.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
From county recordsTopsoil across the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes) runs pH 4.3–5.0 — acidic in all two of them.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes) — and how to grow with it.
Across the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes)'s 2 counties the federal record holds 970 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks (549), Nitrate (206) and Brownfields (97). The heaviest single county is Oxford County, with 703.
That is a regional count, not a reading of any one lot — proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis. Open the map outlined to the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes) to see which records sit where you actually grow.
Sources Checked
Summed across the 2 counties in the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes)
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes), Mining runs higher than the national average — 88 sites across the 2 counties in the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
Your land is one point inside the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes)
Everything above resolves to the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes) as a whole — a footprint spanning USDA zones 4b-5a. Your parcel sits in exactly one of them. 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 region 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 regional average.
Your Lot vs the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes) Average
Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes) Average
- ●USDA Zones 4b-5a, averaged across Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes)
- ●One soil character for all of Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes)
- ●State-average frost dates
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes)'s 4b-5a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes)
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes) — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, contamination, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes) averages can't show:
We read public map data around The Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes) — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes) average
How we know this about the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes)
The boundary: a cluster of neighboring counties. Growing regions have no official boundary, so this footprint is our published one, and every figure on this page was measured over the counties inside it rather than borrowed from the state around it.
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, aggregated across the footprint; the growing season from NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS 1991–2020 28°F normals, read at each member’s own record; boundaries from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination record from the federal sources named in that beat above; the soil from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, read at each member county’s own record and weighted to this footprint by land area. Where a member carries no record of its own, it is absent from the figure rather than filled in.
Common questions about the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes)
What hardiness zone is the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes)?
The Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes) spans USDA hardiness zones 4b-5a, aggregated from the USDA Agricultural Research Service Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023 across the region's counties. Zones reflect average annual extreme minimum temperatures from 1991–2020 data.
How long is the growing season in the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes)?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes)'s counties mostly run 148 to 157 frost-free days, median 152 (NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991–2020, over 2 member counties). That 9-day spread is the honest read — no single season describes 2 counties, and each county guide below carries its own.
When does frost risk end in the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes)?
Across the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes), the middle half of member counties see their last 28°F hard freeze between May 5 and May 11 (median May 8), and their first fall freeze between Oct 6 and Oct 9. Those are hard freezes, not the last light frost: tender transplants wait for about May 29, and elevation decides which end of a 6-day spread you garden in.
What grows well in the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes)?
The Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes)'s conditions suit plants such as Potato, Kale, Blueberry, Apple, White Pine. What actually thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage — we score each plant against the real conditions at your address.
How is the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes) defined?
The Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes) is defined here as a curated cluster of 2 neighboring counties that share a growing character. Growing regions have no official boundary, so this footprint is our published one — every county in it is named on this page.
Which states does the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes) cover?
The Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes) spans Maine. Each state's full growing guide is linked on this page.
What other growing regions cover the same states?
Midcoast Maine, Casco Bay / Greater Portland, Down East Maine, Aroostook County, Greater Bangor / Penobscot Valley, and Kennebec Valley (Central Maine) share at least one state with the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes). Growing regions overlap and interlock — a single address can sit inside more than one, which is why the precise read is always the parcel, not the region.
What this page reads at the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes)’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes)'s own scale — the zone 4b-5a band across its footprint, a median 152-day season across its 2 counties and 970 documented federal contamination records across its 2 counties, 703 of them in Oxford County alone; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- The USDA hardiness band 4b-5a aggregated across all 2 counties in the footprintUSDA PHZM 2023
- The boundary itself — the 2 counties this region is curated fromGrowable Ground subregion registry
- The growing character that makes this region distinct from the states it crossesGrowable Ground subregion registry
- The 28°F season across the footprint — the middle half of its 2 counties run 148 to 157 frost-free days, median 152NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020
- The federal contamination record over the whole footprint — 970 documented federal contamination records across its 2 counties, 703 of them in Oxford County aloneEPA, USGS and USDA federal site records
- The soil order mix across the footprint — 84% Spodosols, topsoil pH 4.3–5.0, area-weighted across its 2 mapped countiesUSDA NRCS SSURGO
Inherited from a wider read
- The candidate plant list — its state's curated sets, merged and filtered to zones 4b-5afrom Maine
What this page can’t tell you
- Which end of the 9-day range your ground sits at — 148 days at one extreme, 157 at the other, decided mostly by elevationfrost dates explained →
- Which of those soils your own ground sits on — the survey maps them county-wide, and they change across a drivewaysoil types explained →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on one specific lotwhy one lot differs from the next →
Explore the Western Maine Mountains (High Peaks / Rangeley Lakes)
State growing guides
Counties in this region
Other growing regions across Maine
Maine's rocky-peninsula coast, where the Atlantic tempers winters into USDA zones 5b–6a and stretches the frost-free season to roughly 186–222 days — Knox County's 222-day window is the longest of any county in the state.
Coastal southern Maine around Portland and Casco Bay — the three counties of the Census Portland-South Portland metro (Cumberland, Sagadahoc, York) all share USDA hardiness zone 5b and a growing season of roughly 166 to 188 frost-free days, the ocean holding the first fall freeze off until late October.
Down East Maine spans Hancock and Washington counties along the state's easternmost coast, where a maritime-tempered USDA zone 5b holds a short frost-free season of roughly 178 to 188 days.
Northern Maine's vast potato country — hard winters, a short intense summer, and deep glacial loams behind one of the country's great seed-potato regions.
The Penobscot Valley's settled corridor — Bangor to Old Town river ground whose measured 177-187-day seasons run a solid week past the 2-million-acre northern-forest county around it.
Central Maine's inland exception to an all-coastal map. Where the Kennebec River threads Augusta, Waterville and Gardiner, the corridor holds Zone 5b with roughly 190 frost-free days — one of the warmer pockets of Maine's continental interior, and warmer than the 4b uplands that ring it. But "continental" is the operative word: with no Atlantic moderation like a Casco Bay parcel gets, growers here trade steadier summer heat for harder radiational-frost nights that can fall well below the nominal-zone number on a clear, still spring or fall evening. Read your own cold pockets off the river — not just the corridor's headline zone.