We rate every variety by the coldest night it has actually come through, at our two Montana sites in Missoula and Florence or with trusted growers farther north, not by a catalog average. A bare zone number means the whole zone, colder half included. A b, like 7b, means the warmer half only. Every product page shows the warm end of the range as well as the cold end.

The few that stop at zone 6 are aspen, chokecherry, sand cherry, and Cortland and Golden Russet apples. Northern plants adapted to long, steady winters can wake up too early in a mild one and lose their bloom to a spring frost.

Everything else is fair game, so choose for flavor and ripening season. Our ripening maps show what ripens when at your place, and the pollination maps show which varieties pollenize each other. See the zone 8 page if you're in the warmer half.

Other zones: Zone 6 · Zone 8. Find your zone with our cold hardiness calculator.