Michigan spans USDA hardiness zones 4a-7a, with a growing season of about 186 frost-free days — a working season long enough for the classics, short enough that timing around frost stays part of the craft.
The raw materials of the growing year here: 28-38 inches of annual rainfall, a median of roughly 1,976 growing-degree days (base 50°F), and about 2,500 winter chill hours for tree fruit. The soil story is sandy loam, clay loam, muck, and glacial outwash — and reading their drainage is half the battle of siting any planting. Michigan is really several growing regions wearing one name: Upper Peninsula, Northern Lower Michigan ("Up North"), and Metro Detroit & Southeast Michigan each grow to a different calendar. Growers here do well with cherry, blueberry, apple, and asparagus — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
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
Michigan spans zones 4a-7a, 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 Michigan — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Distinct growing regions within Michigan — each has its own zones, soils, and signature crops.
Michigan: USDA zones 4a-7a, 126–223 frost-free days depending on the county, 83 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 Michigan's own county record — Iron County's measured 28°F normal, not a modeled floor.
Michigan does not have one growing season. Across the 740 of its 742 towns that carry their own 30-year record, the shortest measured season is Michigamme's at 118 days and the longest is Village of Grosse Pointe Shores's at 225 — a 107-day spread inside one state.
Neither end is a lone reading — another 5 towns measure within 10 days of Michigamme and 55 sit within 10 days of Village of Grosse Pointe Shores. 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 4a-7a is Michigan's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Michigan's 186-day season, see what your own ground reads.
One answer for Michigan averages 83 counties whose growing seasons are 97 days apart — from 126 frost-free days in Iron County to 223 in Berrien 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 83 counties runs 159–191 days, with a median of 186 days — a 97-day span end to end.
Measured across 83 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 Michigan runs 159–191 frost-free days, and 40 of its 83 counties sit outside that — 20 on the short side, 20 on the long. A statewide planting date describes the middle well and the ends poorly, which is worth knowing before you follow one.
Under 159 frost-free days
20 counties
3 of 20 shown
The end of the state that sets the planting calendar — start seed indoors here and the season stretches to meet the crop.
159–191 frost-free days
43 counties
0 of 43 shown
The middle half of the state, and the part a single statewide date describes well.
Over 191 frost-free days
20 counties
3 of 20 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 Michigan — 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
Fast. The sand fraction opens the soil up, so water moves through the root zone quickly and the surface rarely stays soggy. The trade is that nutrients ride out with the water.
What thrives
Root crops love it — carrots, potatoes, radishes, and onions size up cleanly in ground they can push through. Melons, sweet potatoes, asparagus, and most herbs appreciate the warmth and the drainage.
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.
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.
Drainage
Fast and deep. Outwash plains are among the best-drained ground in the glaciated states.
What thrives
Root crops, asparagus, bush fruits, and orchard trees on drought-tolerant rootstocks. Anything that resents wet feet considers outwash a gift.
Soil data: USDA NRCS SSURGO · Soil types explained
Plants well-suited to Michigan'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 Michigan, 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 19 and May 8 (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 12 and Oct 31 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. The tail of the season still works: sixty-day crops into late summer, quick greens after, garlic last of all.
The plants Michigan put its name on — cultural emblems, not growing recommendations.
Apple blossom
Malus
Designated 1897.
Pinus strobus
Designated 1955. In our plant library — see its full growing profile.
Plants the USDA PLANTS Database documents as native and present in Michigan — a real per-state range, not just a zone match. Ordered by how closely each plant’s published hardiness range matches Michigan’s zones 4a-7a, 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 Michigan’s USDA zones 4a-7a 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.
Lake effect weather creates highly localized microclimates
Lake effect rewrites the map mile by mile — check your exact site, not your region, before you commit a planting plan.
Short northern season (100-120 frost-free days in UP)
Up north, fast-maturing varieties plus a hoop house or cold frame turn a tight season into a dependable one.
Sandy soils in western MI drain too quickly
Compost and cover crops, applied annually, teach sandy ground to hold water — the west-side fix is organic matter.
For cultivar selection, pest pressure, and planting-time guidance specific to Michigan, the MSU Extension is the authoritative local source.
Safe to Grow Here?What the federal record shows across Michigan — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Michigan — 60,035 documented sites across 8 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 711 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Michigan 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 Michigan
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 Michigan as a whole — a state whose own counties record seasons 97 days apart, and hardiness across zones 4a-7a. 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 Michigan averages can't show:
We read public map data around Michigan — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Michigan 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.
Michigan spans USDA hardiness zones 4a-7a — which is to say winter's coldest night runs from about −30°F to 5°F depending where in Michigan 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 Michigan, 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 19 and May 8 (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 12 and Oct 31 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. The tail of the season still works: sixty-day crops into late summer, quick greens after, garlic last of all.
Across Michigan, the middle half of counties see their last hard freeze (28°F) between about Apr 19 and May 8, 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 Michigan's counties mostly run about 159 to 191 days, with a county median near 186 (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.
Michigan's zones 4a-7a support a wide range — strong performers include Cherry, Blueberry, Apple, Asparagus, and White Pine. 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, Michigan spans USDA zones 4a-7a (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 Michigan runs heavier than most — 60,035 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (27,779) — 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. Michigan spans USDA zones 4a-7a, which sets what survives winter; last hard freezes range from about Apr 19 to May 8 across its counties (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and 60,035 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 Michigan's scale — its 4a-7a band and its 186-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Michigan'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 Michigan's own scale — the full zone 4a-7a span inside its borders, the 4 soil types that dominate its ground and 60,035 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 Michigan.
Michigan shares its dominant growing region with these states — a useful comparison if you're weighing where a crop will behave the same way.
