Mequon, Wisconsin, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, blueberry, lavender, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Mequon, 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 Mequon 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 Mequon — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Mequon — the short answer
Mequon, Wisconsin: USDA zone 5b, about 210 days between hard freezes, across 30K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~210
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 30K 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 5b is Mequon's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Mequon's 210-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Mequon
Each reading below is measured for Mequon itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMequon runs about 210 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
MeasuredMequon sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b.
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 Mequon is in
Mequon sits in the Southeastern Wisconsin Till Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Mequon's own centroid rather than borrowed from Ozaukee County.
What Grows in Mequon
Every plant below cleared Mequon's own zone 5b and its 210-day season. Each card opens that plant's Wisconsin profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Mequon?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. 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 Nov 3 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
What's on the federal record near Mequon
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Mequon. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- STANLEY PIPKORNBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- OZ-09/21E/29-0354Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- RESURRECTION CEMETERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- CLASSIC SERVICE CENTER INCBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- MOBIL OIL CORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Mequon Mobil MartUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- GROGAN TANK INSTALLATION INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- OZ-09/21E/21-0287Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- PHA DEVELOPMENT INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- Sommers Buick Pontiac IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- SOMMER'S AUTOMOTIVE BODY SHOPBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- RAYMOND HANSENUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Mequon'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 Mequon.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Mequon
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Mequon
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Mequon, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 236 sites within ~10 miles of Mequon. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Mequon
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 Mequon average
Your land is one point inside Mequon
Everything above resolves to Mequon as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 30K 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 Mequon Average
Mequon Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Mequon
- ●One soil character for all of Mequon
- ●Frost dates read at Mequon's scale: Apr 7 to Nov 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Mequon's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Mequon
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Mequon, Wisconsin — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Mequon averages can't show:
We read public map data around Mequon — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Mequon average
How we know this about Mequon
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 Mequon’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 Mequon
When does frost risk typically end in Mequon?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Mequon 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 Mequon?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Mequon typically arrives around Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 20, so the watching starts about Oct 4 — about 210 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Mequon?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Mequon sees about 210 frost-free days — roughly Apr 7 through Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 28 to Oct 20, about 175 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Mequon?
The federal record around Mequon runs heavier than most — 3,288 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,479), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.7 miles 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 Mequon?
From about Oct 4 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 3 (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 3. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Mequon's scale — its 5b band and its 210-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Mequon'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 Mequon’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Mequon's own scale — its own ~210-day season between 28°F freezes, the 29,621 acres it covers and 3,288 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Mequon's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Mequon's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 7 and Nov 3 and the ~210-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 3,288 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Mequon, the closest Brownfields record about 0.7 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Mequon's boundary and the 29,621 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~210-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Mequon's own centroid, the Southeastern Wisconsin Till PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Mequon's 29,621 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Ozaukee County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Ozaukee County
- The growing challenges every Wisconsin grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Wisconsin
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Ozaukee County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Mequon's 29,621 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Mequon you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 29,621 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.7 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 Mequon-wide figureread your own land →