Forest Hills, Michigan, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
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 Forest Hills, 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 Forest Hills 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 Forest Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Forest Hills — the short answer
Forest Hills, Michigan: USDA zone 6a, about 191 days between hard freezes, across 32K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~191
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 32K 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 6a is Forest Hills's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Forest Hills's 191-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Forest Hills
Each reading below is measured for Forest Hills itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredForest Hills runs about 191 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredForest Hills sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
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 Forest Hills is in
Forest Hills sits in the Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Forest Hills's own centroid rather than borrowed from Kent County.
What Grows in Forest Hills
Every plant below cleared Forest Hills's own zone 6a and its 191-day season. Each card opens that plant's Michigan profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Forest Hills?
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 24; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 21 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 29 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Late in the year the fall bench takes over — quick greens, radishes, and garlic that repays you next summer.
Documented around Forest Hills
Survey cells within 31 miles of Forest Hills checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 68 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Forest Hills
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Forest Hills. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SPECTRUM HEALTH MEDICAL GROUPBrownfields · 1000 ft
- Sunrise BPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- AMOCO OIL COBrownfields · 1200 ft
- ADA AUTOMOTIVE LLCBrownfields · 1300 ft
- SPEEDWAY LLCBrownfields · 2000 ft
- Speedway #3590Underground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- Amway CorpUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- ADA COGENERATION LLCBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- ACCESS BUSINESS GROUP, LLCBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- ACCESS BUSINESS GROUP, LLCToxics Release Inventory · 0.6 mi
- Kent County Road CommissionUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- PERFORATED TUBES INCBrownfields · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Forest Hills'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 Forest Hills.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Forest Hills
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Forest Hills
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Forest Hills, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 166 sites within ~10 miles of Forest Hills. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
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 Forest Hills
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 Forest Hills average
Your land is one point inside Forest Hills
Everything above resolves to Forest Hills as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 32K 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 town 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 Forest Hills Average
Forest Hills Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Forest Hills
- ●One soil character for all of Forest Hills
- ●Frost dates read at Forest Hills's scale: Apr 21 to Oct 29
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Forest Hills's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Forest Hills
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Forest Hills, Michigan — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Forest Hills averages can't show:
We read public map data around Forest Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Forest Hills average
How we know this about Forest Hills
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Forest Hills’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 town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-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 Forest Hills
When does frost risk typically end in Forest Hills?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Forest Hills typically lands around Apr 21, 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 12.
When is the first frost in Forest Hills?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Forest Hills typically arrives around Oct 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 15, so the watching starts about Sep 29 — about 191 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Forest Hills?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Forest Hills sees about 191 frost-free days — roughly Apr 21 through Oct 29, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 12 to Oct 15, about 156 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Forest Hills?
The federal record around Forest Hills runs heavier than most — 1,920 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (928), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.2 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 Forest Hills?
From about Sep 29 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 Oct 29 (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 Oct 29. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Forest Hills's scale — its 6a band and its 191-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Forest Hills'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 Forest Hills’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Forest Hills's own scale — its own ~191-day season between 28°F freezes, the 31,551 acres it covers and 1,920 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Forest Hills's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Forest Hills's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 21 and Oct 29 and the ~191-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,920 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Forest Hills, the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Forest Hills's boundary and the 31,551 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~191-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Forest Hills's own centroid, the Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Forest Hills checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Forest Hills's 31,551 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Kent County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Kent 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 Kent County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Forest Hills's 31,551 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Forest Hills you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 31,551 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 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 Forest Hills-wide figureread your own land →
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