Oak Park, Michigan, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
These conditions suit cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Oak Park, 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 Oak Park 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 Oak Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Oak Park — the short answer
Oak Park, Michigan: USDA zone 6b, about 214 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~214
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 3K 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 Oak Park's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Oak Park's 214-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Oak Park
Each reading below is measured for Oak Park itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredOak Park runs about 214 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
MeasuredOak Park 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 Oak Park is in
Oak Park sits in the Huron/Erie Lake Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Oak Park's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Oakland County is mostly Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift Plains. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Oak Park
Every plant below cleared Oak Park's own zone 6b and its 214-day season. Each card opens that plant's Michigan profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Oak Park?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 11; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 8 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 8 — 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 Oak Park
Spotted lanternfly documented 12 miles from Oak Park, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Oak Park
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Oak Park. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- OAK PARK, MIPFAS · 25 ft
- Public Safety BuildingUnderground Storage Tanks · 500 ft
- City Of Oak Park-general ServUnderground Storage Tanks · 500 ft
- MORAN FOODSBrownfields · 1600 ft
- WOODWARD DETROIT CVS LLCBrownfields · 1700 ft
- Amoco Oil #0149Underground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- WALGREEN COBrownfields · 1900 ft
- MobilUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- Mobil SS #03-lygUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- Valvoline Instant Oil ChangeUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- TECK CLEANERSBrownfields · 2000 ft
- ARNOLD CLEANERSBrownfields · 2100 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Oak Park'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 Oak Park.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Oak Park
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Oak Park
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Oak Park, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 101 sites within ~10 miles of Oak Park. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Oak Park
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 Oak Park average
Your land is one point inside Oak Park
Everything above resolves to Oak Park as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 Oak Park Average
Oak Park Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Oak Park
- ●One soil character for all of Oak Park
- ●Frost dates read at Oak Park's scale: Apr 8 to Nov 8
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Oak Park's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Oak Park
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Oak Park, Michigan — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Oak Park averages can't show:
We read public map data around Oak Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Oak Park average
How we know this about Oak Park
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 Oak Park’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 Oak Park
When does frost risk typically end in Oak Park?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Oak Park typically lands around Apr 8, 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 29.
When is the first frost in Oak Park?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Oak Park typically arrives around Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 25, so the watching starts about Oct 9 — about 214 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Oak Park?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Oak Park sees about 214 frost-free days — roughly Apr 8 through Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 29 to Oct 25, about 179 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Oak Park?
The federal record around Oak Park is a meaningful one — 6,215 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (2,974), 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 Oak Park?
From about Oct 9 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 8 (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 8. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Oak Park's scale — its 6b band and its 214-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Oak Park'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 Oak Park’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Oak Park's own scale — its own ~214-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,294 acres it covers and 6,215 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Oak Park's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Oak Park's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 8 and Nov 8 and the ~214-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 6,215 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Oak Park, the closest PFAS record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Oak Park's boundary and the 3,294 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~214-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Oak Park sits in the Huron/Erie Lake Plains — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Oak Parklydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Oak Park's 3,294 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Oakland County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Oakland 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 Oakland County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Oak Park's 3,294 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Oak Park you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,294 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 Oak Park-wide figureread your own land →