South Monroe, Michigan, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Growers here do well with cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in South Monroe, 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 South Monroe 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 South Monroe — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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South Monroe — the short answer
South Monroe, Michigan: USDA zone 6b, about 215 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 7
- 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
- ~215
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 2K 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 South Monroe's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against South Monroe's 215-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in South Monroe
Each reading below is measured for South Monroe itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSouth Monroe runs about 215 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
MeasuredSouth Monroe 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 South Monroe is in
South Monroe sits in the Huron/Erie Lake Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at South Monroe's own centroid rather than borrowed from Monroe County.
What Grows in South Monroe
Every plant below cleared South Monroe's own zone 6b and its 215-day season. Each card opens that plant's Michigan profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in South Monroe?
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 10; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 7 (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 South Monroe
Spotted lanternfly documented 14 miles from South Monroe, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near South Monroe
Closest first, within ~10 miles of South Monroe. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ALLEN CHEVROLET CADILLAC INCBrownfields · 250 ft
- Harry May Chevrolet Cadillac IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- FAMILY DOLLAR STORESBrownfields · 500 ft
- Monroe Dodge ChryslerUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- MONROE DODGE CHRYSLER PLYMOUTHBrownfields · 900 ft
- Frank DecarloUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- MarathonUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- MAGIC MART INCBrownfields · 1400 ft
- J & R Farm Tractor CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- J AND R TRACTOR LLCBrownfields · 2000 ft
- Webster Duval IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- Webster Duvall, IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from South Monroe'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 South Monroe.
Total Sites
472
within ~10 miles of South Monroe
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
6 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of South Monroe
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of South Monroe
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around South Monroe, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 6 sites within ~10 miles of South Monroe. 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.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in South Monroe
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 South Monroe average
Your land is one point inside South Monroe
Everything above resolves to South Monroe as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 South Monroe Average
South Monroe Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across South Monroe
- ●One soil character for all of South Monroe
- ●Frost dates read at South Monroe's scale: Apr 7 to Nov 8
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not South Monroe's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in South Monroe
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in South Monroe, Michigan — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that South Monroe averages can't show:
We read public map data around South Monroe — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the South Monroe average
How we know this about South Monroe
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 South Monroe’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 South Monroe
When does frost risk typically end in South Monroe?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in South Monroe typically lands around Apr 7, 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 28.
When is the first frost in South Monroe?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in South Monroe 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 215 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in South Monroe?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, South Monroe sees about 215 frost-free days — roughly Apr 7 through Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 28 to Oct 25, about 180 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in South Monroe?
The federal record around South Monroe is a meaningful one — 472 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (221), the nearest Brownfields 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 South Monroe?
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 South Monroe's scale — its 6b band and its 215-day season. Your yard writes its own version of South Monroe'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 South Monroe’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at South Monroe's own scale — its own ~215-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,554 acres it covers and 472 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- South Monroe's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- South Monroe's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 7 and Nov 8 and the ~215-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 472 documented contamination sites on the federal record near South Monroe, the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- South Monroe's boundary and the 1,554 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~215-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at South Monroe's own centroid, the Huron/Erie Lake PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of South Monroelydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so South Monroe's 1,554 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Monroe County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Monroe 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 Monroe County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among South Monroe's 1,554 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of South Monroe you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,554 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 South Monroe-wide figureread your own land →