Zone 8 Fruit Trees & Berries

MFTC Zones, Not USDA Averages: Look Up Your Address →

Zone 8 winters stay above 10°F. About two thirds of what we sell is rated up to zone 8, including sweet cherries, peaches, nectarines, pears and plenty of apples.

Everything is listed A to Z. Plants rated only to 8b, the warmer half of the zone (15°F to 20°F), are mixed in and have an 8b tag on them.

More About Growing Fruit in Zone 8

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 8b, means the warmer half only. For zone 8 the number that matters is the warm end of each range, and every plant on this page is rated up to zone 8.

The plants that drop off are mostly the far-north specialists: honeyberries, sea buckthorn, and many of the prairie apples, apricots and bush cherries bred for the Canadian Plains. They're adapted to long, steady winters, and mild ones can wake them up too early.

What does well: Lapins, Gold and Black Gold sweet cherries, Blushingstar and Risingstar peaches, Honeycrisp apple, Bartlett pear, Italian plum, Trader mulberry, Somerset Seedless grape and Native American plum. Our ripening maps can show when each one ripens at your place.

Other zones: Zone 7. Find your zone with our cold hardiness calculator.

Questions About Zone 8

What does zone 8 mean on your scale?

On our MFTC scale, zone 8 means the coldest night you should plan for (the 1-in-30-year low) falls between 10°F and 20°F. Zone 8a runs 10°F to 15°F and zone 8b runs 15°F to 20°F. That is colder than a USDA zone 8, which is built on the average yearly low, so run your address through our cold hardiness calculator instead of going off a USDA map.