Fruit Trees for Beulah, Hazen, Garrison and Lake Sakakawea, North Dakota

In the January 2009 cold snap the old Garrison weather station bottomed out at −48°F, Washburn on the Missouri bottom at −42°F, and Underwood, about 19 miles from Garrison on the McLean County upland, at only −29°F. That spread is why picking fruit trees for Beulah, Hazen, Garrison and Lake Sakakawea starts with where on the ground you are, not just which town.

This map covers the country around Garrison Dam in west-central North Dakota, from Beulah and Hazen on the Knife River to Stanton, Pick City, Riverdale, Washburn, Underwood, Center, Garrison and White Shield. Type your address in the box on the map to get the number for your own place, and the list of what we sell that has come through it.

How to read this map

The number on the map is the 30-year planning low, the number to plan for at that spot. It's the same number our cold hardiness calculator uses, and it leans to the safe side, though it isn't the record and a bad enough night can still beat it. The MFTC zone is that number in half zones. "Typical winter" is an average year's coldest night, the kind of number USDA's map is built on, which is why USDA zones read warmer than ours. The spring layer shows how many degrees warmer or colder each spot runs than Beulah on a still, clear night at bloom.

The middle of the growing ground here plans for −39°F, just on the warm side of the line between MFTC 2b and 3a. The coldest twentieth, on the Knife River floor around Beulah and Hazen, plans for −42°F or worse. The warmest twentieth, on the high ground around Garrison Dam and Underwood, plans warmer than −37°F, and Riverdale tops the named spots at −33°F (MFTC 3b). Beulah, the reference town, plans for −44°F (MFTC 2b), about as cold as anything on the map, with a typical winter around −30°F.

Why the map looks the way it does

The Missouri splits this country down the middle. Garrison Dam holds Lake Sakakawea back to the north and west, and below it the river runs southeast in its trench past Stanton and Hensler to Washburn, on bottoms around 1,700 to 1,755 feet. The Knife River comes in from the west through Beulah and Hazen and joins it just north of Stanton. The uplands of the Missouri Plateau carry towns 250 to 400 feet above the bottoms, and all three counties tilt toward the trench. On a clear, calm night that's where the cold goes: air chilled over the prairie slides down the draws and creeks and piles up on the floors.

The Knife River valley is the deepest cold sink. At Beulah the floor is only 1 to 1.5 miles wide, Spring Creek comes in about a mile southwest of town, and cold off the Mercer County uplands drains down both valleys and settles where they meet. The Beulah station read coldest in every one of the area's big outbreaks from 1959 through 1994, down to −44°F on December 22, 1989, when Garrison read −35°F and Washburn −31°F. Over 21 years its coldest night of the year ran a median 5°F colder than Riverdale's, nearly 200 feet higher; a Hungarian study of 69 clear, calm nights found 6.7°F between a valley floor and a slope 230 feet up. Downvalley the pool loosens: Hazen, 40 feet lower, plans for −42°F, and Stanton at the mouth, lower still, −40°F. A long, narrow floor far from its outlet holds its cold, and where the Knife opens into the Missouri trench the cold can spread out and keep moving. Here, how enclosed a spot is matters more than how high.

The Missouri bottoms are the other cold sink. The floor around Washburn plans for −42°F, and before the dam a station on the bottom 12 miles west of Underwood ran a median 6°F colder than Washburn at the same elevation and logged the coldest reading on this map, −54°F on February 15, 1936. The Corps says the river just below the dam now seldom freezes over (there's usually at least seven miles of open water) because winter releases run warmer than the old river did, but nobody has measured what that does to the nights beside it, and a river bottom is still low ground.

The warm ground is the high country around the dam. Riverdale sits on a slope 190 feet above the nearest floor and plans for −33°F, Pick City on a bench 130 feet up −37°F, and the Underwood upland −36°F. Underwood's station, the highest on the map at 2,045 feet, averages −27°F for its yearly low against Beulah's −32°F, and in January 2009 Riverdale bottomed out at −31°F. This upland sheds its cold toward the trench and the lakes instead of collecting it.

Lake Sakakawea, 180 feet deep at the dam, gives up its summer heat slowly (nearly all its evaporation comes August through December), and in 2021 it didn't freeze over until January 24, the latest on record. Once it's iced over, though, it does nothing for the shore; lakes shelter their shores only when they're relatively free of ice, as Wisconsin's state climatologists put it. Garrison, on the north side, runs a median 3°F colder than Underwood in the year's coldest night.

All of this is a still-night pattern. When an arctic front blows in on a northwest wind, the cold mixes through everything and the benches lose their edge, and outbreaks differ a lot: on February 18, 2025 Garrison read −36°F and Riverdale −29°F, a 7°F spread, against 17°F in January 2009. The spring layer is that still-night pattern at full strength, so the benches read best and the low ground worst. The map gives built-up ground up to 2.5°F, so in towns this size don't count on town heat; put a tender tree within a few feet of a south or west wall instead.

Beulah and the Knife River valley

Beulah sits dead flat on the Knife River floor near where Spring Creek comes in, 10 feet above the lowest ground at about 1,782 feet. It plans for −44°F (MFTC 2b), typical winter −30°F. Within 3 miles the floor runs −45°F, while the benches and slopes 100 to 700 feet up run −41°F and the warmest tenth −40°F, so getting up the valley side is the best 3°F to 4°F you can buy here. The Beulah station's 30-year number, −44°F, matches its all-time low from December 22, 1989. In the winters it ran after 1995 (its record ends in 2006) its coldest was −41°F, so we plan for colder than anything it logged then. The uplands are a thin, patchy drift over bedrock, with reclaimed land around the Freedom Mine, so test drainage before you plant. North of the valley, Truax, on a bench 110 feet above its floor, plans for −40°F and reads 2°F warmer than Beulah in spring.

On the floor, plant from the −45°F and colder list: Haralson and Goodland apples (both on NDSU's best-apples list), Kerr and Trailman applecrabs, Bolshaya pear, Brookgold plum and Evan's Bali tart cherry. Spring is the bigger problem (Beulah's last 28°F comes about two weeks after the upland's), so keep apricots up the valley sides and lean on apples, applecrabs, Honeyberry and the currants rated −50°F.

Hazen, Stanton and the lower Knife

Hazen lies on the Knife River floor just north of the river, about fifteen minutes south of Lake Sakakawea, 10 feet above the lowest ground at 1,743 feet. It plans for −42°F (MFTC 2b), typical −29°F, with a spring reading 1°F warmer than Beulah; the floor around it runs −42°F and the benches −40°F. The Hazen airport station, at 1,811 feet, carries a 30-year number of −41°F, but its coldest in 15 winters on file is −38°F (the 2024-25 winter), so the −42°F we plan for is colder than anything it has recorded.

Stanton, the Mercer County seat, is the lowest town on the map, at 1,704 feet on the bottom where the Knife meets the Missouri. It plans for −40°F (a hair warmer, so MFTC 3a), typical −27°F, with a spring reading 2°F warmer than Beulah; the floor runs −41°F and the benches −37°F. The Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site keeps about 450 acres of the old floodplain forest of green ash, cottonwood, elm and box elder. Hazen takes the Beulah list with 3°F to spare. Stanton's town and benches take the −40°F list, like Norkent and Zestar!® apples, Cold Snap® pear and Meteor tart cherry.

Riverdale, Pick City and Garrison Dam

Riverdale began in 1946 as the biggest of the dam-construction camps. It sits on the high ground just east of the dam, on a 5 percent slope 190 feet above the nearest floor at 1,967 feet, right in the 4 to 8 percent grade Montana State recommends so cold air won't settle. It plans for −33°F (MFTC 3b), typical −24°F, with a spring reading 7°F warmer than Beulah. Drop off the hill to the floor and you lose 5°F. Its station has −40°F on record from January 8, 1977, so anything planted near the edge of its rating is a bet that the next 30 winters look like the last 30.

Pick City, founded in 1946 and named for Lewis A. Pick of the Corps, overlooks the dam from a flat bench 130 feet up at 1,916 feet, about a mile south of Lake Sakakawea State Park. It plans for −37°F (MFTC 3a), typical −26°F, and its spring reading is as good as Riverdale's. This is where the early bloomers belong. Riverdale clears the −35°F list: Lapins and Gold sweet cherries (one of our growers in Cowley, Wyoming saw no damage on Lapins at −33°F), Siberian C peach, Superior plum and Montana Mango apricot. At Pick City those are worth a try on the best ground; the sure picks there are apricots rated −40°F or colder, like Sungold and Westcot.

Garrison, Emmet and White Shield

Garrison, laid out in 1905 when the Soo Line came and named for Garrison Creek, sits on the north side of the lake, 40 feet above its floor at 1,924 feet, with very little bench ground nearby. It plans for −40°F (a hair colder, so MFTC 2b), typical −27°F, with a spring reading 2°F warmer than Beulah. Its two NOAA stations carry 30-year numbers of −40°F and −41°F, and in January 2009 they read −44°F and −48°F, 4°F to 8°F past the number we plan for. The planning low is a safe number for choosing trees, not a promise about the worst night, and Garrison proves it.

West along the north side, Emmet, 90 feet above its floor, plans for −39°F (MFTC 3a). White Shield, the main Arikara (Sahnish) community on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation (MHA Nation), was founded in 1954 to replace Elbowoods, which the reservoir flooded. It sits about 6 miles north of the lake on bottom ground and plans for −41°F (MFTC 2b), with a spring reading 1°F colder than Beulah. Plant Garrison and White Shield from the −45°F list and treat the −40°F list as right at the line; Emmet takes the −40°F list. Farther west toward Parshall and New Town, our Stanley, New Town and north shore map covers you.

Washburn and the Missouri River bottoms

Washburn, the McLean County seat, was founded near the site of Fort Mandan, Lewis and Clark's 1804 to 1805 winter quarters. The town point sits on a bench 100 feet above the river floor, on a 4 percent slope at about 1,759 feet. It plans for −41°F (MFTC 2b), typical −26°F, yet reads 7°F warmer than Beulah in spring. That's the lesson of the bottoms: a deep arctic pool fills the whole trench and covers the bench too, but on a still spring night the cold drains off the bench to the floor below, which plans for −42°F. The Washburn station, at 1,755 feet, has −45°F on record from February 16, 1936 and read −42°F in January 2009.

Across the river, Hensler, on the bottom at 1,712 feet, plans for −41°F, and Fort Clark, on a toe slope at the edge of the pool, −39°F (MFTC 3a). Fort Clark has the worst spring reading of any named spot, 2°F colder than Beulah, because the cold sliding off the slope collects right there. Cross Ranch State Park is on the west bank about 9 miles south of Washburn. On the bottoms, stick with the hardiest apples, applecrabs and pears and with honeyberries (open haskap flowers take 19°F). Washburn's bench is the spot on this stretch for Westcot or Morden 604 apricots, both rated −45°F. Down the river, our Bismarck-Mandan map picks up.

Underwood, Coleharbor and the McLean County upland

Underwood was founded on July 4, 1903 on the Soo Line. It sits on flat upland at 2,025 feet, roughly 300 feet above the Missouri bottoms, and plans for −36°F (MFTC 3a), typical −26°F; within 3 miles the floor runs −36°F and the benches −35°F. Its station has the mildest record on the map: an average yearly low of −27°F over 62 years, a record of −37°F from January 29, 1966, and a 138-day frost-free season, tied for longest. The −36°F we plan for is 1°F colder than anything it has logged since 1995 (−35°F, in the 1995-96 winter).

The spring layer reads Underwood about even with Beulah, which looks odd next to its frost dates. It's reading the ground right around town, and flat upland drains its own cold no better than a flat floor. The upland's frost pockets are its ponds, sloughs and sags (McLean County's east half is full of them). Riverdale Junction, at −37°F, and Falkirk, at −40°F on the floor of its drainage, both read 1°F colder than Beulah in spring. Coleharbor, 50 feet above its floor about 3 miles south of the Lake Audubon refuge visitor center, plans for −37°F with a spring reading 3°F warmer. The upland takes the −40°F list with room to spare, including Norland apple, Underwood plum (the name fits) and Titania black currant, which NDSU calls "highly recommended."

Center, Hannover and the Oliver County upland

Center, the Oliver County seat, named for its spot in the middle of the county, sits on the upland at 1,975 feet but right in its local low ground. It plans for −41°F (MFTC 2b), typical −28°F, with a spring reading about even with Beulah, while the benches within 3 miles run −38°F and the warmest tenth −37°F. The station 4 miles southeast of town, just off the map at 1,990 feet, averages −30°F for its yearly low over 57 years, has −42°F on record from January 18, 1950, and read colder than Underwood in nearly every big outbreak (−39°F to −33°F on February 9, 1994). Hannover, on the south upland at 2,143 feet, plans for −40°F (MFTC 2b). In Center, plant the −45°F list; on the benches around it, the −40°F list opens up.

Spring frost and bloom on the Knife and the Missouri

The frost dates split this map in two. NOAA station records for 1991 to 2020 put Beulah's median last 32°F on May 20 and last 28°F on May 18, its first fall 32°F on September 17 and its frost-free season at 118 days, and one spring in ten its last 32°F comes after June 9. Underwood's last 32°F comes May 14 and last 28°F May 3, Garrison's May 15 to 16 and May 6 to 7, with 132 to 138 frost-free days around the lake and on the upland. Elsewhere the last 28°F runs a week or two ahead of the last 32°F; at Beulah they're two days apart. When that floor frosts late, it frosts hard.

At NDSU's Carrington station in central North Dakota in 2015, plums opened about May 1 and apples May 18, in the middle of three nights at 30°F, 29°F and 27°F; that year the cherries and currants made no crop and the haskap was cut hard. Open blossoms of apple, pear, cherry, peach, apricot and plum all start dying near 28°F (Michigan State's fruit people), and Beulah's median last 28°F lands about when Carrington's apples were opening that year. The saving grace is that only about 15 percent of apple blossoms need to set for a crop, and open haskap flowers take 19°F.

On the map the best bloom ground is the benches at Riverdale, Pick City and Washburn, 7°F warmer than Beulah, and the worst is the low ground at Falkirk, White Shield and Fort Clark, 1°F to 2°F colder. NC State's fruit people say 3°F to 4°F can separate no crop from a full one. Put apricots, plums and sweet cherries on your highest slope and apples, honeyberries and currants lower, and don't run a shelterbelt or a belt of brush across the slope below the trees, or it'll back cold air up into them. Frost cloth of 0.9 ounces per square yard buys about 6°F on small trees, by Alabama Extension's numbers, but site comes first.

Fall matters too. At Carrington about −25°F in late November 2014 hit before the trees were fully hardy. Trees need to harden off before cold like that, so we taper water from mid-August, and drip is the only irrigation we advise in country this dry (15 to 17 inches of precipitation a year at Beulah). The lake may hold off fall frost along its shore, but the stations don't show it clearly (Garrison's first fall 32°F comes September 23 to 30, inland Underwood's September 27).

What the weather records say

NOAA station records here go back to 1896 at Washburn. The coldest on file:

• −54°F on the Missouri bottom 12 miles west of Underwood, February 15, 1936 (that station ran 1923 to 1953, before the dam)
• −48°F at the older Garrison station, January 16, 2009, and −44°F at the newer one on January 15
• −45°F at Washburn, February 16, 1936
• −44°F at Beulah, December 22, 1989
• −42°F southeast of Center, January 18, 1950
• −40°F at Riverdale, January 8, 1977
• −37°F at Underwood, January 29, 1966

North Dakota's state record, −60°F at Parshall across the lake, came that same February of 1936. Average yearly lows run from −34°F at the old bottom station west of Underwood and −32°F at Beulah to −27°F at Underwood, and NOAA station records show the worst night in about 30 winters runs a median 13°F below a station's average winter low.

USDA's 2012 map put Beulah in zone 3b and Hazen, Garrison, Washburn, Stanton, Riverdale, Pick City and Underwood in 4a. We couldn't confirm the 2023 zones here (nationally the 2023 map runs about 2.5°F warmer). Our typical-winter numbers mostly line up with those 2012 zones; our MFTC zones run half a zone to a zone and a half colder because they're built on the bad night: Beulah, Hazen and Garrison 2b, Underwood 3a, Riverdale 3b.

What you can grow here

Every plant we sell is zoned to the coldest temperature it has come through, so compare its rating straight to the number on the map.

Riverdale and the high ground at the dam, −33°F to −37°F

That's Riverdale, Underwood, Pick City, Coleharbor and Riverdale Junction. Everything rated −40°F or colder fits: Norkent, Zestar!®, Sweet Sixteen and Norland apples; Cold Snap®, Summercrisp and Ure pears; Kaga, Pipestone and Underwood plums; Meteor tart cherry; Sungold and Westcot apricots; Trader Mulberry, Titania currant and Nova raspberry. Riverdale also clears the −35°F list above, plus Bartlett pear and Red Baron apple, and those are worth a try elsewhere on this ground on a good slope.

Most of the map, −38°F to −41°F

That's Garrison, Stanton, Washburn, Center, Emmet, White Shield, the bottoms and the benches around Beulah and Hazen. The −45°F and colder list has room to spare: Goodland, Frostbite, Mantet and Wealthy apples; Kerr and Trailman applecrabs (if you only plant one tree, make it one of these); Krazulya pear; Brookred, Northern Blue and Toka plums; FE tart cherry and Romeo dwarf cherry; Morden 604 and Debbie's Gold apricots on a bench with a good spring reading; Honeyberry, Montana Black Currant, Serviceberry and Aronia Berry. The −40°F list fits at −40°F and warmer and is worth a try at −41°F.

Beulah, Hazen and the Knife River floor, −42°F to −45°F

Here it's only what has come through −45°F or colder: Haralson, Goodland, Norda, Parkland and September Ruby apples; Rescue, Kerr and Centennial applecrabs (Ed Schultz saw zero winter injury on Centennial after a winter that hit −47°F); Bolshaya, Krasnobokaya and Vekovaya pears; Brookgold and Ptitsin #5 plums; Nanking Cherry; and Golden Currant, Buffaloberry, Success serviceberry, Chokecherry and Honeoye strawberry. Debbie's Gold and Manchurian Apricot (both −50°F) have the hardiness, but put them up the valley side, out of the floor's late frosts.

Roots, pollenizers, wind and pests

NDSU's rule for zone 3 country is standard trees on Dolgo or Antonovka roots, pruned to 16 feet or less. We'd add Bud 118, which has seen near −50°F under snow at Ed Schultz's in Gallatin Gateway, Montana with no rootstock damage. Roots are the weak link, so hold snow over them on the windswept upland, and mulch. Apples need another apple or crab within 100 feet, NDSU says; Dolgo doubles as pollenizer and rootstock, and our pollination maps show what pollenizes what. A Bismarck nursery owner says to plant on the east side or southeast corner of the place, out of the Alberta clippers' northwest winds; put a windbreak at least as tall as the trees (Montana State's rule) on the north and west, not across the low side. NDSU's Carrington plots list the pests: spotted wing drosophila, plum curculio, juniper-apple rust, birds and hail (a July 9, 2016 storm took about 70 percent of the cherries there). Carrington pulled over half its grapes after repeated winter injury, so start with Valiant (−50°F). White trunk guards stop winter sun, voles and rabbits.

Fruit history here

Hidatsa and Mandan women cleared the Knife River bottomlands for big gardens of corn, beans, squash and sunflowers, and Oscar H. Will and Company of Bismarck (catalogs from 1885 to 1969) collected hardy seed from the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara. Fruit came harder. In the mid-1950s the state college horticulturist J. R. Schultz split North Dakota into fruit zones: the southeast and the Red River Valley were Zone A, "the best area for fruits," a middle band Zone B, and the rest Zone C, where fruit was "chancy" and growers needed native plum rootstock and Siberian rootstock for apples. The Hazen apple came along in 1980, and NDSU says it does well without spraying.

Questions people ask

What growing zone is Beulah, ND?

We plan for −44°F in Beulah, MFTC 2b, with the benches above town at −41°F. USDA's 2012 map put Beulah in zone 3b; USDA's zone is based on an average winter (Beulah's typical low is about −30°F), ours on the bad night we plan for.

What zone are Hazen and Garrison, ND?

We plan for −42°F in Hazen and −40°F in Garrison, both MFTC 2b. USDA's 2012 map put both in zone 4a, based on an average winter rather than the bad night we plan for. Garrison's two NOAA stations read −44°F and −48°F in January 2009.

When is the last frost in Beulah and Hazen?

NOAA station records for 1991 to 2020 put Beulah's median last 32°F on May 20 and last 28°F on May 18, and one spring in ten the last 32°F comes after June 9. Hazen has no long frost record, but it sits about 8 miles down the same valley floor, so plan on something close. On the upland and around the lake it's about May 14 to 16.

Does Lake Sakakawea freeze, and does it keep the shore warmer?

It freezes, usually from late November to late March or early April, with ice up to 41 inches thick, though the latest freeze-up the Corps has declared came January 24, 2021. Once it's iced over it does nothing for the shore: Garrison still runs a median 3°F colder than Underwood in the year's coldest night.

What fruit trees grow in Beulah, ND?

On the Knife River floor, plan for −44°F to −45°F and pick from what has come through −45°F or colder: Haralson and Goodland apples, Kerr and Trailman applecrabs, Bolshaya pear, Brookgold plum, honeyberries and Montana Black Currant. On the benches at about −41°F, the −40°F list (Norkent, Zestar!®) is worth a try. Keep hardy apricots like Debbie's Gold up the valley side, away from the floor's late frosts.

What is the Hazen apple?

A North Dakota apple, Duchess of Oldenburg crossed with Starking Delicious, introduced in 1980: large, dark red and mild, ripe in late August at Fargo, on a hardy, semi-dwarf tree that bears every year and resists fire blight. NDSU lists it among the best apples for the state. We haven't found a source that says whether it was named for the town.

Warmer spots, colder spots

Here's the number to plan for at named places on the map, warmest first. Each one is the 1-in-30-year low for that spot: the cold hardiness calculator's number from the same weather stations, sharpened by our microclimate model for the ground right there. Zone is our MFTC zone, set by that one bad night, not by an average.

The weather stations behind it

These are the long-record stations in and around this map, with each one's own numbers since the winter of 1995-96. The last column is this map's 30-year number right at the station, which won't match the station exactly: it's a blend of the stations around it, the way the calculator works everywhere.

Source: NOAA records through ACIS, winters 1995-96 through 2025-26. What the "carried forward," "gaps filled" and AWOS rows mean is explained in how our microclimate maps work.