Swartz Creek, Michigan, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
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 Swartz Creek, 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 Swartz Creek 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 Swartz Creek — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Swartz Creek — the short answer
Swartz Creek, Michigan: USDA zone 6a, about 188 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~188
- 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 6a is Swartz Creek's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Swartz Creek's 188-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Swartz Creek
Each reading below is measured for Swartz Creek itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSwartz Creek runs about 188 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
MeasuredSwartz Creek 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 Swartz Creek is in
Swartz Creek sits in the Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Swartz Creek's own centroid rather than borrowed from Genesee County.
What Grows in Swartz Creek
Every plant below cleared Swartz Creek's own zone 6a and its 188-day season. Each card opens that plant's Michigan profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Swartz Creek?
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 21; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 18 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 23 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. The tail of the season still works: sixty-day crops into late summer, quick greens after, garlic last of all.
Documented around Swartz Creek
Survey cells within 31 miles of Swartz Creek checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 36 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Swartz Creek
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Swartz Creek. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Kroger 711Underground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- KROGER CO OF MICHIGANBrownfields · 750 ft
- Marathon Unit #1937Underground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- MI DEPT/TRANSPORTATIONBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- Morrish FuelUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- WOODS COLLISION INCBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- Meijer Gas Station #259Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- COUNTY OF GENESEE ROAD COMMISSIONBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- Genesee County Road CommissionUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- MEIJER INCBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- SUNOCO INCBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- Admiral Petroleum #42Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Swartz Creek'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 Swartz Creek.
Total Sites
1,373
within ~10 miles of Swartz Creek
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
22 Superfund sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Swartz Creek
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Swartz Creek
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Swartz Creek, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 22 sites within ~10 miles of Swartz Creek. 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 Swartz Creek
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 Swartz Creek average
Your land is one point inside Swartz Creek
Everything above resolves to Swartz Creek 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 Swartz Creek Average
Swartz Creek Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Swartz Creek
- ●One soil character for all of Swartz Creek
- ●Frost dates read at Swartz Creek's scale: Apr 18 to Oct 23
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Swartz Creek's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Swartz Creek
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Swartz Creek, Michigan — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Swartz Creek averages can't show:
We read public map data around Swartz Creek — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Swartz Creek average
How we know this about Swartz Creek
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 Swartz Creek’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 Swartz Creek
When does frost risk typically end in Swartz Creek?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Swartz Creek typically lands around Apr 18, 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 9.
When is the first frost in Swartz Creek?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Swartz Creek typically arrives around Oct 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 9, so the watching starts about Sep 23 — about 188 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Swartz Creek?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Swartz Creek sees about 188 frost-free days — roughly Apr 18 through Oct 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 9 to Oct 9, about 153 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Swartz Creek?
The federal record around Swartz Creek is a meaningful one — 1,373 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (655), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Swartz Creek?
From about Sep 23 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 23 (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 23. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Swartz Creek's scale — its 6a band and its 188-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Swartz Creek'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 Swartz Creek’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Swartz Creek's own scale — its own ~188-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,682 acres it covers and 1,373 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Swartz Creek's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Swartz Creek's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 18 and Oct 23 and the ~188-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,373 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Swartz Creek, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Swartz Creek's boundary and the 2,682 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~188-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Swartz Creek's own centroid, the Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Swartz Creek 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 Swartz Creek's 2,682 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Genesee County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Genesee 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 Genesee County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Swartz Creek's 2,682 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Swartz Creek you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,682 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Swartz Creek-wide figureread your own land →
More in Michigan
Wider growing context
What grows across MichiganSwartz Creek sits outside our named growing regions, so Michigan as a whole is its closest context here.