Wisconsin spans USDA hardiness zones 3b-6a, with a growing season of about 173 frost-free days — a true four-season rhythm: spring greens, a full summer main crop, and a fall window that rewards planning.
The growing year is built on 28-34 inches of annual rainfall, a median of roughly 2,102 growing-degree days (base 50°F), and about 2,500 winter chill hours for tree fruit, and every crop choice answers to them. The ground itself runs to silt loam, clay loam, sandy outwash, and muck; drainage character, more than fertility, is usually what sorts the thrivers from the strugglers. The state line hides real variety: Driftless Area, Northwoods (Northern Wisconsin), and Southeastern Wisconsin Lakeshore (Milwaukee Metro) each keep their own zone band and frost dates. Well-matched crops include cranberry, cherry, potato, and ginseng, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded inUSDA PHZM•NOAA Climate Normals•USDA NRCS SSURGO•GDD (PRISM 1991-2020 normals)•Chill hours (PRISM 1991-2020 normals)•USDA hardiness sub-region map•EPA FRS•USDA PLANTS•Growable Ground suitability scoring
Wisconsin spans zones 3b-6a, but your yard 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 Wisconsin — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Distinct growing regions within Wisconsin — each has its own zones, soils, and signature crops.
Wisconsin: USDA zones 3b-6a, 140–217 frost-free days depending on the county, 72 counties.
The middle half of this state’s counties. Tender transplants usually wait 2–3 weeks past the last hard freeze. The shortest-season figure is Wisconsin's own county record — Florence County's measured 28°F normal, not a modeled floor.
Wisconsin does not have one growing season. Across all 807 of its towns that carry their own 30-year record, the shortest measured season is Long Lake's at 135 days and the longest is Shorewood's at 222 — an 87-day spread inside one state.
Neither end is a lone reading — another 9 towns measure within 10 days of Long Lake and 18 sit within 10 days of Shorewood. These are real pockets, so the number to plant against is your own town's, not the state average.
NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS (1991–2020), 30-year daily minimum record
Zone 3b-6a is Wisconsin's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Wisconsin's 173-day season, see what your own ground reads.
One answer for Wisconsin averages 72 counties whose growing seasons are 77 days apart — from 140 frost-free days in Florence County to 217 in Milwaukee County. That is the same state, measured the same way, in the same years. Which end of it your county sits nearer decides what finishes before the first hard freeze.
The middle half of 72 counties runs 158–187 days, with a median of 173 days — a 77-day span end to end.
Measured across 72 counties, each carrying its own 28°F normal. NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020, county 28°F killing freeze. A county with no record of its own is absent from the range rather than counted as zero — nothing here is interpolated to the state. Your own site sits somewhere inside this range; a parcel report resolves where.
The middle half of Wisconsin runs 158–187 frost-free days, and 34 of its 72 counties sit outside that — 16 on the short side, 18 on the long. A statewide planting date describes the middle well and the ends poorly, which is worth knowing before you follow one.
Under 158 frost-free days
16 counties
3 of 16 shown
The end of the state that sets the planting calendar — start seed indoors here and the season stretches to meet the crop.
158–187 frost-free days
38 counties
0 of 38 shown
The middle half of the state, and the part a single statewide date describes well.
Over 187 frost-free days
18 counties
3 of 18 shown
Long enough for a second succession of a quick crop after the first comes out.
Each county is placed by its own 28°F frost-free normal (NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS, 1991-2020, county 28°F killing freeze), the same figure its own guide page publishes. Elevation, slope and cold-air drainage move a yard within its county as well — which is the part only your address resolves.
The soil types that dominate Wisconsin — how each drains decides more about crop success than almost anything else. Tap any soil to learn what it is and how to work with it. Each photo is a representative profile of that soil type; the named series is where it was documented, which is often another state.
Drainage
Moderate. Silt holds water well and releases it steadily, though the fine particles can crust after hard rain and compact under traffic.
What thrives
The full vegetable garden does well here, and small grains, corn, and leafy greens are classic silt-loam crops. Its steady moisture suits shallow-rooted plants that dislike drought stress.
Loam tilted toward clay — heavier in the hand, slower to dry, and richer in nutrients than its sandier cousins. Clay particles carry a surface charge that holds fertilizer and minerals where roots can reach them.
Drainage
Slow to moderate. Water lingers in the root zone longer than in loam, which is a gift in dry summers and a challenge in wet springs.
What thrives
Heavy feeders that appreciate steady moisture — brassicas, corn, beans, and many fruit trees. Perennials with strong root systems establish well once they are through the first season.
Sand and gravel sorted and dropped by glacial meltwater rivers — the glacier ground the rock, and the rushing water sorted it by size as the ice retreated. Outwash plains are flat, stone-free at the surface, and deeply drained.
Drainage
Very fast, often to considerable depth — outwash rarely holds a puddle.
What thrives
Potatoes are the classic outwash crop, along with carrots, asparagus, and bush fruits. Pines and oaks dominate the native cover for the same reason: they handle the droughtiness.
Drainage
It holds water like a sponge by nature; farmed muck is managed with ditches and water control, and it can dry, shrink, and even blow when left bare.
What thrives
Muck is celebrated vegetable ground — onions, celery, carrots, lettuce, and greens grow to prize quality in it. Its loose, black tilth is what root and leaf crops dream of.
Soil data: USDA NRCS SSURGO · Soil types explained
Plants well-suited to Wisconsin's climate, soils, and growing season — each links to its full growing profile.
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Across Wisconsin, cool-season planting typically opens about four weeks before the local last hard freeze — county medians put that freeze near Apr 25, with the middle half of counties between Apr 17 and May 2 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals). Tender transplants wait two to three weeks past it, and fall planting counts back from first freezes mostly between Oct 9 and Oct 21 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Even past midsummer there is room for a true fall garden here, and garlic planted near the close carries the momentum into next year.
The plants Wisconsin put its name on — cultural emblems, not growing recommendations.
Wood violet
Viola sororia
Designated 1949.
Acer saccharum
Designated 1949. In our plant library — see its full growing profile.
Plants the USDA PLANTS Database documents as native and present in Wisconsin — a real per-state range, not just a zone match. Ordered by how closely each plant’s published hardiness range matches Wisconsin’s zones 3b-6a, so this is a shortlist by climate fit, not a ranking of which plants matter most here. Presence is statewide, so a plant may still be uncommon in your specific county; your state’s Cooperative Extension or a native-plant society is the local authority.
US-native plants whose hardiness range overlaps Wisconsin’s USDA zones 3b-6a but which USDA PLANTS doesn’t map to a single state range here. Zone overlap is a starting filter, not a range map.
What an experienced grower plans around here — each one has a move.
Cold winters (-30F in northern WI)
Plant perennials rated for the cold you actually get — northern Wisconsin rewards zone honesty with decades of returns.
Short growing season (110-140 frost-free days)
Indoor starts plus a cold frame stretch the season on both ends — standard practice from Madison to Superior.
Sandy central soils drain too quickly
The Central Sands fix is organic matter — compost and cover crops, every year, until the ground holds its own water.
For cultivar selection, pest pressure, and planting-time guidance specific to Wisconsin, the UW–Madison Division of Extension is the authoritative local source.
Safe to Grow Here?What the federal record shows across Wisconsin — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Wisconsin — 57,912 documented sites across 8 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 314 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Wisconsin carries one of the heavier federal records we track — and that's not a verdict on your yard. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis: nothing here says any particular parcel is affected. It does earn one concrete step — before food beds go in the ground, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Severity Distribution
across Wisconsin
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
Everything above resolves to Wisconsin as a whole — a state whose own counties record seasons 77 days apart, and hardiness across zones 3b-6a. Your parcel sits at one point in that range, not in the middle of it. 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 state 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 statewide average.
State averages sketch the shape. Your soil, sun exposure, drainage, and microclimate decide what actually takes. Pull a site-specific report for your exact parcel.
Enter your address. We read your soil, sun, drainage, and frost dates, then score 1,086 plants against the real conditions on your land.
Three things about your lot that Wisconsin averages can't show:
We read public map data around Wisconsin — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Wisconsin average
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read per county and aggregated to the state band; the growing season from NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS 1991–2020 28°F normals, read at each county’s own record; rainfall from NOAA Climate Normals; soils from USDA NRCS SSURGO; boundaries from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination record from the federal sources named in that beat above. Where a county carries no record of its own, it is absent from the figure rather than filled in.
Wisconsin spans USDA hardiness zones 3b-6a — which is to say winter's coldest night runs from about −35°F to −5°F depending where in Wisconsin you are, averaged over 1991–2020 (USDA PHZM 2023).
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Across Wisconsin, cool-season planting typically opens about four weeks before the local last hard freeze — county medians put that freeze near Apr 25, with the middle half of counties between Apr 17 and May 2 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals). Tender transplants wait two to three weeks past it, and fall planting counts back from first freezes mostly between Oct 9 and Oct 21 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Even past midsummer there is room for a true fall garden here, and garlic planted near the close carries the momentum into next year.
Across Wisconsin, the middle half of counties see their last hard freeze (28°F) between about Apr 17 and May 2, with a county median near Apr 25 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals). 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 16.
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, growing seasons across Wisconsin's counties mostly run about 160 to 187 days, with a county median near 173 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals). Tender crops get a somewhat shorter practical window, since lighter frosts reach a few weeks past the hard-freeze dates on both ends.
Wisconsin's zones 3b-6a support a wide range — strong performers include Cranberry, Cherry, Potato, Ginseng, and Sugar Maple. What actually takes on any one site comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage, and we score each plant against the real conditions at your address.
Officially, Wisconsin spans USDA zones 3b-6a (USDA PHZM 2023) — but a zone is a 30-year average of winter's coldest night across an area, and it can't see any one yard. A south-facing slope, a tree line, or a low frost pocket can shift a single site by half a zone either way, which is why neighboring gardeners often quote different numbers. We read the conditions at your exact address — soil, sun, slope, and frost — and score 1,086 plants against what's actually there.
The federal record across Wisconsin runs heavier than most — 57,912 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (32,666) — 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.
Start with three facts. Wisconsin spans USDA zones 3b-6a, which sets what survives winter; last hard freezes range from about Apr 17 to May 2 across its counties (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and 57,912 documented sites sit on the federal record here, so a soil test before food beds is the smart first step. From there, matching plants to your actual soil and sun is the fun part.
Everything above is measured at Wisconsin's scale — its 3b-6a band and its 173-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Wisconsin's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
6 of the readings below were taken at Wisconsin's own scale — the full zone 3b-6a span inside its borders, the 4 soil types that dominate its ground and 57,912 documented sites on its federal record; anything it cannot resolve at this scale is named below.
Measured here
What this page can’t tell you
Explore growing conditions by county — each has its own zone range and land area.
Explore growing conditions by city or town in Wisconsin.
Wisconsin shares its dominant growing region with these states — a useful comparison if you're weighing where a crop will behave the same way.
