St. Clair Shores, Michigan, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Expect cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in St. Clair Shores, 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 St. Clair Shores 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 St. Clair Shores — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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St. Clair Shores — the short answer
St. Clair Shores, Michigan: USDA zone 6b, about 224 days between hard freezes, across 7K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~224
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 7K 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 St. Clair Shores's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against St. Clair Shores's 224-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in St. Clair Shores
Each reading below is measured for St. Clair Shores itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSt. Clair Shores runs about 224 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
MeasuredSt. Clair Shores 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 St. Clair Shores is in
St. Clair Shores sits in the Huron/Erie Lake Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at St. Clair Shores's own centroid rather than borrowed from Macomb County.
What Grows in St. Clair Shores
Every plant below cleared St. Clair Shores's own zone 6b and its 224-day season. Each card opens that plant's Michigan profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in St. Clair Shores?
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 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 6 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 16 — 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 St. Clair Shores
Spotted lanternfly documented 22 miles from St. Clair Shores, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near St. Clair Shores
Closest first, within ~10 miles of St. Clair Shores. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ARDMORE SCHOOLBrownfields · 850 ft
- St Clair Shores Police StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- Precision TuneUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- MORISETTE AUTOMOTIVE IV INCBrownfields · 1800 ft
- CONNOR CLEANERBrownfields · 1800 ft
- DOCTORS CLINIC PCBrownfields · 1800 ft
- ARKAY-WALKER PAINT COMPANYBrownfields · 1900 ft
- M & G SHORES CLEANERS INCBrownfields · 1900 ft
- Central FireUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- Shell Service StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- WOODWARD DETROIT CVS, LLCBrownfields · 2200 ft
- TEN MILE DRAINAGE SYSTEM PCB SPILLSuperfund · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from St. Clair Shores'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 St. Clair Shores.
Total Sites
3,256
within ~10 miles of St. Clair Shores
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
47 Superfund sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of St. Clair Shores
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of St. Clair Shores
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around St. Clair Shores, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of St. Clair Shores — Superfund (47 sites) and Brownfields (1,610 sites). 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.
Brownfields: Brownfield sites are former commercial or industrial properties where legacy soil contamination (heavy metals, PAHs, petroleum compounds) may persist.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check EPA brownfield remediation status — many sites have completed cleanup with institutional controls.
Check your specific parcel in St. Clair Shores
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 St. Clair Shores average
Your land is one point inside St. Clair Shores
Everything above resolves to St. Clair Shores as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 7K 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 St. Clair Shores Average
St. Clair Shores Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across St. Clair Shores
- ●One soil character for all of St. Clair Shores
- ●Frost dates read at St. Clair Shores's scale: Apr 6 to Nov 16
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not St. Clair Shores's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in St. Clair Shores
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in St. Clair Shores, Michigan — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that St. Clair Shores averages can't show:
We read public map data around St. Clair Shores — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the St. Clair Shores average
How we know this about St. Clair Shores
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 St. Clair Shores’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 St. Clair Shores
When does frost risk typically end in St. Clair Shores?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in St. Clair Shores typically lands around Apr 6, 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 27.
When is the first frost in St. Clair Shores?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in St. Clair Shores typically arrives around Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 2, so the watching starts about Oct 17 — about 224 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in St. Clair Shores?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, St. Clair Shores sees about 224 frost-free days — roughly Apr 6 through Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 27 to Nov 2, about 189 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in St. Clair Shores?
The federal record around St. Clair Shores is a meaningful one — 3,256 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (1,610), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles 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 St. Clair Shores?
From about Oct 17 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 16 (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 16. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at St. Clair Shores's scale — its 6b band and its 224-day season. Your yard writes its own version of St. Clair Shores'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 St. Clair Shores’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at St. Clair Shores's own scale — its own ~224-day season between 28°F freezes, the 7,476 acres it covers and 3,256 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- St. Clair Shores's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- St. Clair Shores's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 6 and Nov 16 and the ~224-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 3,256 documented contamination sites on the federal record near St. Clair Shores, the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- St. Clair Shores's boundary and the 7,476 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~224-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at St. Clair Shores's own centroid, the Huron/Erie Lake PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of St. Clair Shoreslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so St. Clair Shores's 7,476 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Macomb County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Macomb 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 Macomb County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among St. Clair Shores's 7,476 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of St. Clair Shores you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 7,476 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 St. Clair Shores-wide figureread your own land →