Decoding Michigan Growing Zones: What Michiganders Need to Know for a Stunning Four-Season Garden

Your Michigan growing zone is an important piece of information to understand when choosing what to grow in your garden. The growing zone, determined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), is set by average minimum winter temperatures and helps you decide what plants will survive the winter months.

The Michigan planting map includes zones of cooler areas like 4a, 4b, 5a, and 5b. There are also warmer pockets in the state that include zones 6a and 6b. Keep in mind that the USDA growing zones were updated in 2023. While not all areas changed, many did, so your zone might be different from what it was a few years ago.

You can locate your planting zone on the map below. Then keep reading to learn what you need to know about the Michigan planting zones to grow a thriving garden.

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Understanding Growing Zones

Understanding which growing zone you reside in is of enormous assistance when you are selecting flowers, trees, shrubs, or perennial food crops for your landscape or garden.

Within each growing zone are microclimates, which exist because of landscape features such as hills or valleys or hardscape elements including buildings, concrete, and paved pathways. Other factors such as the winter sun, wind, humidity, and soil nutrients play a role in determining how hardy a particular plant will be through the winter.

In general, the USDA planting zone map is an extremely useful tool and most plant distributors and local nurseries will provide zone information with their plants.

What Planting Zone Is Michigan?

Michigan is divided into three different growing zones and further subdivided into six subzones: 4a, 4b, 5a, 5b, 6a, and 6b. Each hardiness zone across the U.S. is defined by the lowest average annual temperature that occurs in winter.

Each zone includes a ten-degree Fahrenheit range of minimum temperatures. The zones are divided into five-degree subzones. The USDA zones and subzones range from 1 in the coldest parts of the country, like Alaska, to 13 in the warmest areas, like Puerto Rico.

The USDA zones and subzones determine which plants are perennial based on their hardiness in those minimum temperatures. When choosing plants, you’ll see a hardiness zone, such as 6, which tells you that a plant should survive winter in zone 6 and grow as a perennial there.

Michigan Hardiness Zones by Region

The updates to the 2023 USDA hardiness zone map created shifts in growing zones for many gardeners. The current map is the most detailed that the agency has ever produced and represents climate data from 1991 to 2020.

In general, the changes shifted half of the U.S. into warmer growing zones. The USDA added zones 12 and 13 to accommodate changes in the warmest regions. About 40% of Michigan shifted. These changes include warmer subzones along a lot of the coastal areas of the Great Lakes. Some areas of the Upper Peninsula (U.P.) warmed by an entire zone.

Southern Lower Peninsula

Most of the Southern Lower Peninsula is in growing zone 6a. Smaller pockets of 6b include the west coast, along Lake Michigan, the coast along Lake Erie, Lake St. Clair, and the eastern areas of metro Detroit and the city of Detroit. Cities tend to be warmer, even within zones and subzones.

Zone 6a covers areas where the average annual extreme minimum temperatures are between -10 and -5°F (-23 to -20.5°C). Zone 6b is -5 to 0°F (-20.5 to -17.8°C).

Northern Lower Peninsula

The Northern Lower Peninsula is largely in zone 5, excepting the coasts. A small pocket, the region around Burt and Mullett Lakes, and south nearly to Gaylord, is in zone 4b. A larger area surrounding this region is in zone 5a. It includes Gaylord, Grayling, and Cadillac.

There is a narrow ring of zone 5b around the 5a zone. This subzone dips south into Muskegon and Montcalm Counties and stretches nearly to the Lake Michigan and Lake Huron coasts. It includes the eastern parts of Oceana, Mason, and Manistee Counties, southeastern Grand Traverse County, and most of Antrim, Charlevoix, Newaygo, Mecosta, Gladwin, and Arenac Counties. Small central bands of Iosco, Alcona, Alpena, and Presque Isle Counties are in this zone.

In zone 5b, you may experience winter temperatures as cold as between -15 and -10°F (-26 to -23°C). Zone 5a includes temperatures between -20 and -15°F (-28.8 to -26°C).

Coastal Lower Peninsula

The coastal areas of Michigan are warmer than the interior. This puts almost all of the coast of Lake Michigan in zone 6b. The tip of the thumb on Lake Huron is also in zone 6b, while most of the rest of that coast is in zone 6a. The far northern tip of the Lower Peninsula, including Mackinac Island, is in zone 5b.

Upper Peninsula

The Upper Peninsula, or U.P., has a lot of variation in its growing zones. The tip of the peninsula of Delta County in Lake Michigan and the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula in Lake Superior are in zone 6a. Most of the rest of the Lake Michigan and Lake Huron coasts are in zone 5b, as is much of the Lake Superior coast.

Most of the eastern part of the U.P. is in zone 5a, with small pockets of 4b in Chippewa, Luce, and Alger Counties. The western part of the U.P. has some pockets of zone 4a, including parts of Gogebic, Iron, Baraga, and Marquette Counties. This is surrounded by a band of zone 4b and a narrower band of zone 5a.

The average extreme low temperatures for the U.P. include -25 to -20°F (-31.6 to -28.8°C) in zone 4b and -30 to -25°F (-34.4 to -31.6°C) in zone 4a.

Know your Michigan growing zone for the best results when gardening. Your zone indicates the trees, shrubs, and perennials that will survive your winter and give you good growth for years. Anything from warmer zones is still growable, but use these plants as annuals or houseplants.

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