Lake Leelanau, Michigan, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Lake Leelanau, 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 Lake Leelanau 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 Lake Leelanau — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Lake Leelanau — the short answer
Lake Leelanau, Michigan: USDA zone 6a, about 204 days between hard freezes, across 163 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~204
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 163 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 Lake Leelanau's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Lake Leelanau's 204-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Lake Leelanau
Each reading below is measured for Lake Leelanau itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLake Leelanau runs about 204 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
MeasuredLake Leelanau 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 Lake Leelanau is in
Lake Leelanau sits in the North Central Hardwood Forests — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Lake Leelanau's own centroid rather than borrowed from Leelanau County.
What Grows in Lake Leelanau
Every plant below cleared Lake Leelanau's own zone 6a and its 204-day season. Each card opens that plant's Michigan profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Lake Leelanau?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 25; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 22 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 12 — 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.
What's on the federal record near Lake Leelanau
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Lake Leelanau. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Lake Leelanau ExcavatingUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- Leelanau PetroleumUnderground Storage Tanks · 400 ft
- SAINT MARY SCHOOLBrownfields · 800 ft
- Bunek HardwareUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- Esch FarmUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- Provemont Professional BuildingUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- Lake Leelanau AmocoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- Teds Standard ServiceUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- MI DEPT/TRANSPORTATIONBrownfields · 2200 ft
- Ted GrantUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- Lavern J. FleesUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- CONCANNON PAINTING COBrownfields · 2.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Lake Leelanau'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 Lake Leelanau.
Total Sites
67
within ~10 miles of Lake Leelanau
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Lake Leelanau
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Lake Leelanau
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Lake Leelanau, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 47 sites within ~10 miles of Lake Leelanau. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Lake Leelanau
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 Lake Leelanau average
Your land is one point inside Lake Leelanau
Everything above resolves to Lake Leelanau as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 163 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 Lake Leelanau Average
Lake Leelanau Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Lake Leelanau
- ●One soil character for all of Lake Leelanau
- ●Frost dates read at Lake Leelanau's scale: Apr 22 to Nov 12
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lake Leelanau's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Lake Leelanau
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Lake Leelanau, Michigan — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lake Leelanau averages can't show:
We read public map data around Lake Leelanau — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lake Leelanau average
How we know this about Lake Leelanau
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 Lake Leelanau’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 Lake Leelanau
When does frost risk typically end in Lake Leelanau?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Lake Leelanau typically lands around Apr 22, 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 13.
When is the first frost in Lake Leelanau?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Lake Leelanau typically arrives around Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 29, so the watching starts about Oct 13 — about 204 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Lake Leelanau?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Lake Leelanau sees about 204 frost-free days — roughly Apr 22 through Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 13 to Oct 29, about 169 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Lake Leelanau?
The federal record around Lake Leelanau is a meaningful one — 67 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (47), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Lake Leelanau?
From about Oct 13 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 12 (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 12. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Lake Leelanau's scale — its 6a band and its 204-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Lake Leelanau'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 Lake Leelanau’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Lake Leelanau's own scale — its own ~204-day season between 28°F freezes, the 163 acres it covers and 67 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Lake Leelanau's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Lake Leelanau's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 22 and Nov 12 and the ~204-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 67 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Lake Leelanau, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Lake Leelanau's boundary and the 163 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~204-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Lake Leelanau's own centroid, the North Central Hardwood ForestsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Lake Leelanau's 163 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Leelanau County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Leelanau 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 Leelanau County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Lake Leelanau's 163 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Lake Leelanau you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 163 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Lake Leelanau-wide figureread your own land →
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