Oakland County, in Michigan, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Oakland County lies within Metro Detroit & Southeast Michigan — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Oakland County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Oakland County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Oakland County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Oakland County — the short answer
Oakland County, Michigan: USDA zone 6a, about 202 days between hard freezes, across 555K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~202
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 555K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 6a is Oakland County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Oakland County's 202-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Oakland County
Across a year, Oakland County accumulates about 2,463 growing degree days above 50°F, about 363 more than the middle Michigan county — ahead of 68 of Michigan’s 83 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Oakland County
Across Oakland County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Marlette, Spinks, and Fox are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.2–6.5, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group A soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
16%
Hydric soils
21%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Oakland County
The USDA soil survey maps 47% of Oakland County as well drained — but another 33% drains differently: 15% very poorly drained, 12% somewhat poorly drained.
Marlette is the most extensive named soil at 18% of mapped acres, then Spinks (9%) and Fox (8%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Oakland County
Each reading below is measured for Oakland County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Oakland County are well drained, in hydrologic group A — ground that drains quickly.
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
MeasuredTopsoil across Oakland County runs about pH 6.2–6.5, close to neutral.
This is the range most vegetables prefer — one correction you probably do not have to make, which is genuinely good news for a new bed.
Keep it there with compost rather than lime or sulfur, and only amend if your own soil test says otherwise.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 21% of Oakland County is mapped as hydric — wetland — soil.
If your lot falls in one of those pockets, a standard in-ground bed will fight waterlogging all season, and roots that need air will struggle.
Check how your own ground drains before you dig; raised beds or moisture-loving plantings turn a wet corner from a problem into a niche.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredOakland County runs about 202 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
The kind of country Oakland County is in
Oakland County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift Plains (85%) and Huron/Erie Lake Plains (14%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Oakland County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Oakland County's own USDA zone 6a and its own 202-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Michigan profile.
Is it too late to plant in Oakland County?
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 16; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 13 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 1 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Oakland County
Spotted lanternfly documented 6 miles from Oakland County, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle18 documented records
- monarch butterfly420 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Oakland County
USGS estimates 10,295 lb of Glyphosate on Oakland County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of 2,4-d (4,091 lb) and Atrazine (2,337 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Oakland County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Oakland County — 6,189 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 23 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Oakland County 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.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Oakland County
Closest first, across Oakland County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Kroger #D-675Underground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- WOODWARD DETROIT CVS, LLCBrownfields · 350 ft
- Waterford Fire Station #1Underground Storage Tanks · 350 ft
- Waterford Twp Parks & RecUnderground Storage Tanks · 350 ft
- FITZPATRICK INCBrownfields · 450 ft
- Valvoline Instant Oil ChangeUnderground Storage Tanks · 500 ft
- Mobil Crescent IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- SUNSET BOATS & MARINE SERVICES LLCBrownfields · 950 ft
- KROGER #0675-018Brownfields · 1000 ft
- FAMILY DOLLAR STORESBrownfields · 1200 ft
- LSM SYSTEMS ENGINEERINGBrownfields · 1400 ft
- MERCY HEALTH PHYSICIAN PARTNERSBrownfields · 1600 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Oakland County'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 Oakland County.
Sources Checked
across Oakland County
Severity Distribution
across Oakland County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Oakland County, Brownfields runs higher than the national average — 3,087 sites across Oakland County. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Brownfields: Brownfield sites are former commercial or industrial properties where legacy soil contamination (heavy metals, PAHs, petroleum compounds) may persist.
Check EPA brownfield remediation status — many sites have completed cleanup with institutional controls.
Check your specific parcel in Oakland County
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 Oakland County average
Your land is one point inside Oakland County
Everything above resolves to Oakland County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 555K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Oakland County Average
Oakland County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Oakland County
- ●One soil character for all of Oakland County
- ●Frost dates read at Oakland County's scale: Apr 13 to Nov 1
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Oakland County's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Oakland County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Oakland County, Michigan — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Oakland County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Oakland County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Oakland County average
How we know this about Oakland County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Oakland County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Oakland County
When does frost risk typically end in Oakland County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Oakland County typically lands around Apr 13, 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 May 4.
How long is the growing season in Oakland County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Oakland County sees about 202 frost-free days — roughly Apr 13 through Nov 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 4 to Oct 18, about 167 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Oakland County?
The federal record around Oakland County runs heavier than most — 6,189 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (3,087), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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.
Everything above is measured at Oakland County's scale — its 6a band and its 202-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Oakland County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Michigan's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Oakland County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Oakland County's own scale — its own ~202-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 6,189 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Oakland County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Oakland County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~202-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Oakland CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 6,189 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile outFederal environmental registers
- Oakland County's boundary and the 555,152 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~202-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Oakland County spans, Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Oakland County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Oakland County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Michigan grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Michigan
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Oakland County — the ~202 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Oakland County's 555,152 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 6,189 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Oakland Countyread your own land →