Center Line, Michigan, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
The conditions favor cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Center Line, 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 Center Line 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 Center Line — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Center Line — the short answer
Center Line, Michigan: USDA zone 6b, about 220 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~220
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 1K 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 6b is Center Line's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Center Line's 220-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Center Line
Each reading below is measured for Center Line itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCenter Line runs about 220 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
MeasuredCenter Line sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Center Line is in
Center Line sits in the Huron/Erie Lake Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Center Line's own centroid rather than borrowed from Macomb County.
What Grows in Center Line
Every plant below cleared Center Line's own zone 6b and its 220-day season. Each card opens that plant's Michigan profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Center Line?
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 8; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 5 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 11 — 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.
Documented around Center Line
Spotted lanternfly documented 16 miles from Center Line, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Center Line
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Center Line. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CENTER LINE, CITY OFPFAS · 25 ft
- CENTER LINE PREPARATORY ACADEMYBrownfields · 50 ft
- Toyota of WarrenUnderground Storage Tanks · 250 ft
- Hilton CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- St. Clement SchoolUnderground Storage Tanks · 650 ft
- THE SHERWIN WILLIAMS COBrownfields · 1200 ft
- AUTOZONE INCBrownfields · 1200 ft
- Centerline Municipal BldgUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- Marathon GasUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- MOBIL OIL CORPBrownfields · 1300 ft
- MICHIGAN BELL TELEPHONE COMPANYBrownfields · 1400 ft
- Centerline CO (M15110)Underground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Center Line'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 Center Line.
Total Sites
6,298
within ~10 miles of Center Line
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
115 Superfund sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Center Line
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Center Line
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Center Line, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Center Line — Superfund (115 sites) and Brownfields (3,105 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Brownfields: Brownfield sites are former commercial or industrial properties where legacy soil contamination (heavy metals, PAHs, petroleum compounds) may persist.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check EPA brownfield remediation status — many sites have completed cleanup with institutional controls.
Check your specific parcel in Center Line
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 Center Line average
Your land is one point inside Center Line
Everything above resolves to Center Line as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Center Line Average
Center Line Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Center Line
- ●One soil character for all of Center Line
- ●Frost dates read at Center Line's scale: Apr 5 to Nov 11
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Center Line's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Center Line
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Center Line, Michigan — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Center Line averages can't show:
We read public map data around Center Line — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Center Line average
How we know this about Center Line
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 Center Line’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 Center Line
When does frost risk typically end in Center Line?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Center Line typically lands around Apr 5, 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 26.
When is the first frost in Center Line?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Center Line typically arrives around Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 28, so the watching starts about Oct 12 — about 220 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Center Line?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Center Line sees about 220 frost-free days — roughly Apr 5 through Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 26 to Oct 28, about 185 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Center Line?
The federal record around Center Line is a meaningful one — 6,298 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (3,105), the nearest PFAS record under a tenth of a mile out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Center Line?
From about Oct 12 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 11 (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 11. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Center Line's scale — its 6b band and its 220-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Center Line'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 Center Line’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Center Line's own scale — its own ~220-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,121 acres it covers and 6,298 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Center Line's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Center Line's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 5 and Nov 11 and the ~220-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 6,298 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Center Line, the closest PFAS record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Center Line's boundary and the 1,121 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~220-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Center Line's own centroid, the Huron/Erie Lake PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Center Linelydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Center Line's 1,121 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Macomb County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Macomb County
- The growing challenges every Michigan grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Michigan
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Macomb County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Center Line's 1,121 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Center Line you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,121 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest PFAS 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 Center Line-wide figureread your own land →