Fruit Trees for Dayton, Kettering, Beavercreek, Springfield and Troy, Ohio

In the January 1984 cold snap the Xenia 6 SSE station read −28°F while the Dayton MCD station, down on the valley floor at 743 feet, read −13°F. A 15°F spread over 19 miles is the extreme end of a pattern you can plan around, and it's the place to start with fruit trees for Dayton, Kettering, Beavercreek, Springfield and Troy. The warm side of the Miami Valley is the city and the hills just south of it. The cold side is the high, flat till plain to the north and east.

This map covers Greater Dayton and the heart of the Miami Valley in southwest Ohio: Montgomery County, western Greene County, Springfield and most of Clark County, southern Miami County up to Troy, and the north edge of Warren County. 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 big number is the 30-year planning low, the same number our cold hardiness calculator uses, nudged a little for the lay of the land. It leans cold on purpose and it isn't the record. The MFTC zone is that number in half zones. The typical winter is an average year's coldest night, the kind of average USDA's map is built on. The spring layer shows how many degrees warmer or colder a spot runs than downtown Dayton on a still, clear night at bloom.

Downtown plans for −16°F, MFTC zone 5a, with a typical winter of −1°F. The middle of the growing ground plans for −18°F, and half of it falls between −19°F and −16°F. The warm end is the upland just south of the city, where Short Hills plans for −12°F and Oakwood and Kettering −13°F, MFTC zone 5b. The cold end is east of Yellow Springs: Cedarville −21°F, Hustead −22°F and Clifton −23°F, the coldest named place we checked. Every plant we sell except Chicago Hardy Fig has come through −20°F or colder, so here the winter low sorts out only a few tender trees, and where frost settles on a spring night does most of the choosing.

Why the map looks the way it does

Three rivers meet at Dayton. The Great Miami comes down from Troy through Taylorsville Dam, the Stillwater comes in past Englewood, and the Mad River runs in from Springfield past Fairborn and Huffman Dam to Deeds Park. The floor at Dayton sits at about 740 to 750 feet, roughly 230 to 260 feet below Kettering, Oakwood, Huber Heights and the airport upland. On a clear, calm night the cold made on all that upland slides down the creeks into these floors and follows the Great Miami southwest past Miamisburg and Franklin. Away from the city the floors show it: Miamisburg and Germantown plan for −19°F, while the benches within 3 miles of Miamisburg plan for −15°F.

Downtown should be cold by that logic, but brick and pavement give back the day's heat and close-set buildings hide the sky on exactly the still nights that set winter lows. The Dayton MCD station runs warmer than its long-record neighbors. In the year's coldest reading the airport station, 9 miles away, runs a median 4°F colder over 73 years, Germantown 3 NE 3°F colder, Xenia 6 SSE 4°F colder and the Springfield Water Treatment Plant 5°F colder. In the January 1994 cold snap Dayton MCD bottomed out at −18°F while the airport read −25°F and the Springfield plant −26°F.

The best ground is the upland just south of town. Oakwood started as farmland on a hill south of Dayton, and the map puts it 250 feet above the floor, planning for −13°F and reading 10°F warmer than downtown at bloom. Centerville, on the highest ground between Lebanon and Dayton (the divide between the Great Miami and the Little Miami), plans for −14°F and reads 8°F warmer. That's the thermal belt: cold drains off the slopes and pools below, under a warmer layer. Over 69 clear, calm nights in Hungary, a valley floor averaged 6.7°F colder than a slope 230 feet higher, about the rise from the river to Oakwood. Kettering shows the catch. It's 190 feet up and plans for −13°F, but its flat bench top reads only 2°F warmer at bloom. A flat upland makes its own cold on a calm night and has no slope to send it down.

The cold side is north and east, where the upland climbs to about 1,000 to 1,050 feet around Yellow Springs, Cedarville and Buck Creek State Park. The Dayton International Airport station (993 feet) and the Dayton Wright Brothers Airport station (953 feet) sit at nearly the same height, yet the first runs a median 3°F colder in the yearly low over 28 years, and for an October 2025 frost advisory WHIO said frost chances rose the farther north and east of Dayton you went. We haven't found a published explanation. That country is out past the city's heat, and much of it is so flat (Xenia, Cedarville and Springfield sit on slopes of 1 percent or less) that cold air has nowhere to go on a calm night. When arctic air pours in on a wind, open high ground takes the worst of it.

Water doesn't help much. There's no natural lake of any size, just rivers, reservoirs and more than 26,000 acres of dry flood basins the Miami Conservancy District built after the 1913 flood, empty most of the year. The Mad River runs 50°F to 55°F year round on groundwater, but we haven't found any measurement of what that does on a frost night, and the bottom at Mad River, just north of Enon, reads 6°F colder than downtown at bloom, the coldest spring reading of any named place we checked. The soil splits too: sand and gravel in the valleys, heavy clay till on the uplands. An old Washington Township history says upland crops ripened about two weeks behind the gravel bottoms, and an early start on low ground is the wrong combination for fruit.

Downtown Dayton, the Oregon District and the old neighborhoods

Downtown plans for −16°F, MFTC zone 5a, with the floor within 3 miles at −16°F and the benches at −14°F. South Park, Huffman and Dayton View plan for −15°F, MFTC zone 5b. The Oregon District plans for −16°F, and McPherson Town, on the river bottom, −16°F and 1°F colder than downtown at bloom.

The flat core reads within a degree or so of downtown at bloom, and the edges read better. North Riverdale, on a 9 percent hillside 90 feet above the floor, plans for −14°F and reads 10°F warmer, and the hillside at East Dayton, 120 feet up, plans for −15°F and reads 9°F warmer; cold air keeps moving past a slope like that. Upper Dayton View, on the bench 150 feet up, plans for −14°F and reads 6°F warmer, and out west around Drexel, Ridgewood Heights plans for −13°F and reads 7°F warmer. Chicago Hardy Fig (−10°F) is worth a try tucked against a south or west wall where the map reads −15°F or warmer, with the dry strip at the wall's foot kept watered.

Oakwood, Kettering and Centerville

Oakwood is hilly on its west side, where Orville Wright's Hawthorn Hill stands, and gently sloping on the east, with Far Hills Avenue splitting the two. It plans for −13°F, MFTC zone 5b, with a typical winter of 2°F, against −16°F on the floor within 3 miles. Short Hills, 230 feet above the floor on the Kettering upland, plans for −12°F and reads 11°F warmer than downtown at bloom.

Kettering plans for −13°F with a typical winter of 1°F, against −17°F on the floor within 3 miles, and reads 2°F warmer at bloom. The upland isn't one solid block: Woodbourne, in a shallow low spot 30 feet above its own floor, plans for −16°F and reads 1°F colder. Centerville plans for −14°F, MFTC zone 5b, with the floor within 3 miles at −17°F. Washington Township around it is generally high, lower only in its southwest corner and along Hole's Creek. South of town, Kenricksville, on a bench 150 feet up, plans for −14°F and reads 6°F warmer.

Plant apricots, peaches and sweet cherries on the Oakwood slopes, Short Hills and Centerville, and on Kettering's flat lots give them your highest corner.

Miamisburg, West Carrollton, Germantown, Springboro and Franklin

Below Dayton the Great Miami bottoms widen over gravel and sand. Miamisburg plans for −19°F, MFTC zone 5a, and reads 1°F colder than downtown at bloom. Bridgeport, across the river, flooded so often that about half its lots were vacated, and it plans for −19°F too. West Carrollton plans for −18°F, and New Chicago, 220 feet up north of town, −13°F and 10°F warmer at bloom. Germantown, on Twin Creek by the Germantown Dam, plans for −19°F, right on the floor, with its benches at −16°F.

Springboro plans for −17°F and reads 1°F warmer at bloom, with its benches at −14°F. Tamarack Hills, on the hillside 140 feet up, plans for −14°F and reads 9°F warmer. Little Mount, the hill between Springboro and Franklin, 220 feet above the floor, plans for −13°F and reads 12°F warmer than downtown at bloom, the best spring reading of any named place we checked. Franklin, on the river bottom, plans for −17°F and reads 1°F colder, and its station hit −25°F on January 29, 1963. Middletown, on the floor at 651 feet, plans for −17°F, and Manchester Meadows, on the bench 180 feet up east of town, −14°F and 7°F warmer. Farther south, the Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky map covers you.

Beavercreek, Fairborn, Bellbrook and the Little Miami

Beavercreek took in the old communities of Alpha, Knollwood, New Germany and Zimmerman, at very different heights. The center plans for −18°F, MFTC zone 5a, and reads 1°F warmer than downtown at bloom, with its benches at −15°F. New Germany, on the bench 180 feet up, plans for −15°F and reads 6°F warmer, while Alpha, on its river bottom, plans for −18°F and reads 1°F colder. Bellasera, on the bench southwest of the center, plans for −15°F and reads 5°F warmer.

Fairborn sits on the Mad River floor by Huffman Dam, which holds no water most of the year, and it plans for −16°F, mild for a floor, and reads 1°F colder at bloom. Bellbrook, right on its floor, plans for −18°F and reads 2°F colder, and Washington Mills, on the river bottom just east, −19°F and 4°F colder. Corwin and Waynesville, on the Little Miami, plan for −18°F, and Spring Valley, on a 9 percent toe slope, plans for −18°F and reads 6°F warmer at bloom.

Xenia, Yellow Springs and Cedarville

Xenia was laid out at the forks of the Shawnee creeks in 1803. It plans for −19°F, MFTC zone 5a, with a typical winter of −4°F and benches at −17°F, and its Waterstreet Historic District reads 2°F warmer than downtown Dayton at bloom. Wilberforce, on the bench 120 feet up, plans for −18°F and reads 6°F warmer. The Xenia 6 SSE station read −28°F on January 21, 1984, tying the coldest reading on any station here, and it dropped to −18°F last winter (2025-26), its coldest since 1995.

Yellow Springs is named for an iron-rich spring that stains the rocks yellow-orange, now in Glen Helen Nature Preserve. The village plans for −20°F, MFTC zone 5a, and reads 4°F warmer than downtown at bloom, while the floor within 3 miles plans for −21°F and the benches −18°F. Clifton Gorge cuts through about three miles east, just southwest of Clifton, where the glacial drift thins and limestone comes to the surface. Clifton plans for −23°F, MFTC zone 4b, with a typical winter of −8°F, right on the floor of the upland. Cedarville plans for −21°F, MFTC zone 4b, and reads 1°F warmer at bloom.

Springfield, Enon and New Carlisle

Springfield's waterways are the Mad River, Buck Creek (also called Lagonda Creek) and Beaver Creek, and the Mad River valley pinches through a limestone gorge at the city. Downtown Springfield plans for −18°F, MFTC zone 5a, with a typical winter of −4°F, and reads 1°F warmer than downtown Dayton at bloom. The floor within 3 miles plans for −19°F and the warmest tenth of the ground −16°F.

The slopes are what count here. The East High Street Historic District, on an 8 percent toe slope, plans for −18°F and reads 8°F warmer at bloom, and Ridgewood, on a bench 110 feet up, −17°F and 5°F warmer. On the north side, Terra Cella Manor, on a 7 percent hillside, plans for −20°F but reads 7°F warmer, while Eagle City, on the floor north of town, plans for −21°F and reads 3°F colder. West of the city, Rock Way, on the bench 120 feet up, plans for −16°F and reads 8°F warmer. Durbin, on the river bottom toward Enon, plans for −19°F and reads 5°F colder. Enon plans for −18°F and New Carlisle −19°F, both about even with downtown Dayton at bloom.

The Springfield Water Treatment Plant station recorded −26°F on January 19, 1994. If you're farther east toward Columbus, the Columbus and Central Ohio map covers you.

Vandalia, Englewood, Tipp City and Troy

The Dayton International Airport sits on the upland at about 1,000 feet, roughly 10 miles north of downtown. Vandalia plans for −17°F, MFTC zone 5a, with a typical winter of −5°F, on a bench 150 feet above the floor, and reads 3°F warmer than downtown at bloom. Taylorsville, on low ground east of town, plans for −19°F and reads 3°F colder. Huber Heights sits up on the upland at 991 feet; type your address for your own number.

Englewood sits by the Stillwater River and Englewood Dam, and the town and Union, just north, are both on a bench 110 feet above the floor. Both plan for −18°F and read about 7°F warmer than downtown at bloom. Tipp City plans for −18°F with a typical winter of −5°F and reads even with downtown at bloom. Troy, on the Great Miami bottom, plans for −19°F with no bench ground within 3 miles, and West Milton −20°F.

Spring frost and bloom in the Miami Valley

The frost free season changes a lot across this map. NOAA station records for 1991 to 2020 put the median last 32°F frost at the Dayton MCD station, on the valley floor, on April 9 and the first fall frost on October 31, a 202-day season. The Dayton International Airport station runs April 18 to October 22, 188 days. The Xenia 6 SSE station runs April 23 to October 18, 176 days, and the Springfield Water Treatment Plant station April 27 to October 18, 169 days, with one year in ten a 32°F frost as late as May 13. That plant sits on colder ground than downtown Springfield (−21°F against −18°F on our map), so read its dates as the cold side of town. All those thermometers sit about 5 feet up, and on a clear night the ground can run 4°F to 8°F colder.

The freezes that cost a crop come after warm spells. Around Easter 2007, a week of highs in the low 70s°F was followed by a freeze to about 25°F in places. On April 20 and 21, 2021, snow and record cold hit with Monnin's orchards in Butler Township in full bloom, and Glenn Monnin called the timing the worst ever. In another April, four freezes, the worst 25°F after warm nights had opened the blossoms, left him expecting about a quarter of a normal apple and peach crop, while his strawberries under frost blankets came through. A mid-May 2020 frost did its damage in pockets, said Greg Myer of Ohio State's extension office in Warren County.

Open blossoms of the common tree fruits start dying near 28°F, Michigan State's fruit people say, and Myer puts the devastating line at 28°F or lower too. Apples forgive the most, since only about 15 percent of the blossoms need to set for a crop. Haskap, our honeyberry, takes 19°F with its flowers wide open.

The FAO's frost manual calls site the single most important frost protection. Put apricots, peaches, sweet cherries and plums where the spring layer reads warm: the North Riverdale and Oakwood hillsides, Short Hills, Little Mount, Tamarack Hills, the Englewood bench. Keep pears off frosty low ground; they bloom early. A hedge or fence across a slope backs cold air up into the trees just above it, so leave a gap at the low end. Through bloom, keep the grass under 2 inches, don't till, and water a day or two ahead of a frost night.

What the weather records say

NOAA station records put the coldest readings here at −28°F, at Dayton MCD on February 13, 1899 and at Xenia 6 SSE on January 21, 1984. The big outbreaks came in January 1977, 1982, 1984, 1985 and 1994 and December 1989, and every time Dayton MCD read 3°F to 15°F milder than the coldest of the Xenia, airport and Springfield stations.

Since then it's been easier. In January 2014 Dayton stayed below 0°F for 28 straight hours, and late that month the Springfield plant read −16°F and the airport −13°F. That winter killed 15 to 20 percent of Monnin's peach trees and damaged about 40 percent of Old Mason Winery's vineyards near West Milton. A rating has to hold on the bad night, which is why every plant we sell is zoned to the coldest temperature it has actually survived. Our planning low leans to the safe side too: downtown plans for −16°F, colder than anything the Dayton MCD station has read since 1995 (−13°F).

WDTN calls the Miami Valley USDA zone 6, and Ohio State's extension people note the 2023 USDA map puts Ohio in zones 5b to 7a, built on the 1991 to 2020 average of each winter's coldest night. Ours is built on the bad night we plan for: MFTC zone 5b on the hills south of the city, 5a across most of the map, 4b on the coldest ground east of Yellow Springs.

What you can grow here

Most of our list clears winter anywhere on this map, so pick by site and bloom.

The south hills and the warm city, −12°F to −15°F

Oakwood, Kettering, Centerville, the warmer old Dayton neighborhoods and the high benches like New Chicago and Little Mount. Everything but the fig fits, even Bing cherry, Santa Rosa plum, Flavortop nectarine, Baldwin apple and Javid's Iranian Almond Seedling (all −20°F), plus Stella cherry, Glohaven peach and Montana Trial Persimmon (all −25°F) and Montana Trial Pawpaw (−30°F).

The valley floors and most of the suburbs, −16°F to −20°F

Downtown, Fairborn, Springboro, Beavercreek, Vandalia, Springfield, Miamisburg, Xenia, Tipp City, Troy and Yellow Springs. The −20°F trees still fit, though at −19°F to −20°F they're right at the line. With room to spare: Contender peach (−30°F; Tom McCamant grows it at Forbidden Fruit Orchard in Paradise, Montana, and it's the only commercial peach we know of that has taken −32°F), Blushingstar peach (−30°F; it came through −25°F at our place on January 13, 2024 without damage), Harlayne apricot (−30°F), Lapins cherry (−35°F), Stanley plum (−30°F), Seckel pear (−35°F), and Liberty (−35°F) and Northern Spy (−30°F) apples. Marquette grape (−35°F) has room to spare anywhere on this map. Keep the pears and stone fruit off the bottoms.

The cold upland east, −20°F to −23°F

Cedarville, Clifton, Hustead, Eagle City and Ludlow Falls. The −25°F trees fit: Redstar peach, Hardired nectarine and Glockenapfel apple. Bing, Santa Rosa and Baldwin (−20°F) are worth a try on your best spot, off the floor, and Siberian C peach (−35°F) and Sungold apricot (−40°F) have plenty of room.

Matching trees to the spring layer

Where your spot reads at or above downtown Dayton at bloom, that's ground for apricots, peaches, sweet cherries and plums. Apples need a second variety blooming at the same time, and for plums, Toka is a good pollenizer for Superior; our pollination maps show the rest. Where it reads 3°F or more below downtown (the river bottoms at Durbin and Mad River, Washington Mills, Eagle City), lean on apples, honeyberry, Montana Black Currant, Red Lake currant, Pixwell gooseberry and Nova raspberry. Those bush fruits all came through the hard bloom-time frost of spring 2026 well at our place in Montana, and Red Lake and Montana Black Currant fruited after their flower buds saw about 22°F.

Soil, site and roots

Ohio's state soil, Miamian, was mapped in Montgomery County: lime-rich glacial till under a silty cap, moderately well drained. A 1911 USDA soil circular on the old Miami clay loam found level ground often wet enough to need tile 3 feet down or more, and it put apples on rolling, well-drained uplands with good air drainage, out of low spots. Test before you plant: dig 2 feet, fill the hole, let it drain, fill it again, and if it empties in under 10 hours it's well drained. Bob Purvis's rule from our grower manual is that an east-facing slope is ideal, and Montana State recommends a 4 to 8 percent grade. Mulch young trees before a snowless cold snap, since bare frozen ground is what kills roots.

Fruit history here

Miami Township's first settlers planted apple orchards, mostly seedlings, soon after clearing, and peaches did well; wild plums and grapes were plentiful, and Alexander Nutz had a good orchard by the War of 1812. Today Monnin's Fruit Farm on Frederick Pike, in business more than 60 years, grows apples, peaches, plums, cherries, strawberries and raspberries, and Peifer Orchards at Yellow Springs, started as John Peifer's hobby and now run by his daughter Emma, has about 4,000 apple trees in 20 varieties.

Questions people ask

What growing zone is Dayton, Ohio?

WDTN calls the Miami Valley USDA zone 6. Downtown Dayton plans for −16°F on our map, MFTC zone 5a, and Oakwood and Kettering −13°F, MFTC zone 5b. USDA's zone is based on an average winter's coldest night; ours is built on the bad night we plan for.

When is the last frost in Dayton, Ohio?

NOAA station records for 1991 to 2020 put the median last 32°F frost on April 9 at the Dayton MCD station on the valley floor and April 18 at the Dayton International Airport station, where one year in ten it comes as late as May 2.

Can you grow peaches in Dayton?

Yes. Monnin's Fruit Farm grows them, and every peach we sell has come through −25°F or colder, colder than any place we checked on this map plans for. Bloom is the bigger risk, so plant them on a slope that reads warm on the spring layer, like Oakwood or Tamarack Hills, not in a creek bottom.

Why does Springfield frost later than Dayton?

The Springfield Water Treatment Plant station's median last spring frost comes April 27, against April 9 at Dayton MCD. We haven't found a published explanation, but Springfield sits higher, out past Dayton's city heat, on flat ground with little slope to drain cold air, and the plant sits on colder ground than downtown Springfield by our map.

Where are the frost pockets around Dayton?

The bottoms. The Mad River bottom near Enon reads 6°F colder than downtown on a still bloom night, Durbin 5°F colder and Washington Mills near Bellbrook 4°F colder. The best spring ground is the hillsides: Little Mount near Springboro reads 12°F warmer than downtown and Oakwood 10°F warmer.

What fruit trees grow in Dayton, Ohio?

Nearly everything we sell clears winter here. On the hills south of the city (−12°F to −15°F) even Bing cherry and Santa Rosa plum (−20°F) fit, and across most of the suburbs (−16°F to −20°F) Contender peach, Harlayne apricot, Lapins cherry, Seckel pear and Liberty apple do. Put the stone fruit on the slopes and the apples and berries on the low ground.

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.