Fruit Trees for Fort Wayne, Auburn, Huntington and New Haven, Indiana

In the cold snap at the end of January 2019, NOAA's Fort Wayne airport station bottomed out at −13°F. Up in DeKalb County the Garrett 1 S station read −26°F, and the plain Garrett station, about a mile away at nearly the same height, read −17°F. Northeast Indiana looks flat, but its cold doesn't spread out evenly, and that's what picking fruit trees for Fort Wayne, Auburn, Huntington and New Haven comes down to. The map covers the Three Rivers country around the Summit City: Allen County (Fort Wayne, New Haven, Huntertown, Leo-Cedarville, Grabill, Woodburn), southern DeKalb County (Auburn, Garrett), eastern Whitley County (Columbia City, Churubusco), Noble County around Chain O'Lakes and Albion, Huntington and Roanoke, and south to Ossian, Markle and Decatur.

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 for the lay of the land: a safe number to plan on, not the record and not a promise of how often it comes. The MFTC zone is that number in half zones. The typical winter is an average year's coldest night, the kind of number USDA's map is built on. The spring layer shows how many degrees warmer or colder a spot runs than downtown Fort Wayne on a still, clear night at bloom.

Downtown Fort Wayne, our reference, plans for −23°F, MFTC zone 4b, with a typical winter of −8°F. The middle of the map's growing ground plans for −22°F, half of it between −23°F and −21°F, and nine tenths of it between −25°F and −20°F. The warm end, 5a, is to the south: Markle at −19°F, Decatur and Hoagland at −20°F, and the benches around Huntington at −19°F. The cold end is the old lake bed east of New Haven, where Bluecast, 2 miles north of Woodburn, plans for −26°F (4a).

Why the map looks the way it does

Fort Wayne sits where the St. Joseph and St. Marys meet to make the Maumee, right on the divide between the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. The land is what the ice left: the Fort Wayne Moraine along the two rivers, the flat bed of Glacial Lake Maumee to the east, the Wabash-Erie Channel cut southwest toward Huntington when that lake drained, and kettle-lake country to the north and northwest. Named places run from 711 feet at the Forks of the Wabash to 987 feet at Green Center, and most sit less than 40 feet above their own local floor.

The winter number here is mostly the weather stations' story. The fine-scale terrain term moves it less than half a degree at the main towns; the spread comes from the stations, which don't agree. The mild ones are the Fort Wayne airport, Decatur 1 N, the plain Garrett station and the Huntington Dam station; the cold ones are Garrett 1 S, Columbia City, Bluffton 6N and the Huntington station. Downtown's −23°F is colder than anything the airport has recorded since 1995 (−19°F, January 2009), though the old Fort Wayne City station, kept from 1898 to 1940, read −24°F on January 12, 1918.

Where stations sit at different heights in one place, they show the classic pattern. The Huntington station sits low, at 731 feet. The Huntington Dam station, 67 feet higher at the Roush Lake dam just upstream, ran 4°F to 5°F warmer in both cold snaps they shared (−15°F against −19°F in January 2009, −13°F against −18°F in February 2014). That's cold pooling on the low ground with milder air a few dozen feet up. The two Garrett stations, 10 feet apart in height, are the puzzle: 2°F apart in January 2018, 11°F apart in February 2014. We haven't found a published explanation.

On a clear, calm night the chilled air against the ground gets heavy and creeps downhill. On the old Black Swamp east of the moraine, which falls about 4 feet in a mile (less than a tenth of a percent), it mostly stays where it's made, over wide, wet clay that was ditched and tiled between 1859 and 1885. A wide, shallow basin can pool harder than a deep valley that drains. In a draw at Five Points, between New Haven and Woodburn, the spring layer reads 8°F colder than downtown, the coldest spring reading of any named place on the map.

Up off the floor, it doesn't take much. A 1936 Michigan State study found orchard ridges only 25 to 30 feet above the surrounding plain could be nearly as frost-free as high hills. Around Aboite, Timbercrest sits 70 feet above its floor and reads 5°F warmer than downtown on a bloom night, while the Aboite marker a little over a mile south, down at the floor, reads 4°F colder. Tri-Lakes, on a 10 percent hillside 60 feet up, reads more than 5°F warmer. That's the thermal belt in flat country: ground the cold slides past on its way down.

Towns hold heat on still nights, and the map gives built-up ground up to 2.5°F. The kettle lakes and the reservoirs (Roush Lake, Cedarville, Hurshtown) aren't water we count on: we found no ice records for any of them, and a lake that freezes over stops helping in midwinter. And snow is thin: the Weather Service says snow on the ground here rarely tops 10 inches at one time, so roots can't count on a deep blanket.

Downtown Fort Wayne, the north side and Cedar Creek

Downtown sits at 764 feet on the river floor where the St. Joseph and St. Marys meet. It plans for −23°F, 4b, with a typical winter of −8°F; within 3 miles the floor runs −23°F, the coldest tenth of the ground −24°F and the warmest tenth −21°F. In town, put the tenderest tree within a few feet of a south or west wall, out of the bottoms.

Huntertown, first called "The Opening" for a natural clearing in the forest, sits on low ground near where the Eel River rises. It plans for −24°F and reads 3°F colder than downtown in spring. Near it is Cedar Creek's canyon, a meltwater tunnel valley and the most distinctive landform around the city. Ground above the floor here does well: the Cedar Canyons subdivision, 30 feet up, plans for −24°F and reads 3°F warmer than downtown, and Cedar Shores, 50 feet up, plans for −23°F and reads 2°F warmer. Leo-Cedarville, on the St. Joseph, plans for −24°F and reads 1°F colder; Grabill −22°F and even.

Aboite, Waynedale and the southwest side

The Wabash-Erie Channel runs off southwest from here toward Huntington, a trough 1 to 2 miles wide scoured by the Lake Maumee flood and now followed by the Little River. Purdue's soil mapping puts muck and very poorly drained lake soils in that valley west of the city, cold, wet ground to keep fruit trees out of. The higher ground around Aboite is the opposite. Timbercrest, Ellison, Ellisville, Liberty Hills and Devils Hollow sit 40 to 70 feet above their floor and plan for −20°F to −22°F. On a bloom night Timbercrest reads 5°F warmer than downtown, Ellison and Ellisville 4°F, Liberty Hills 3°F and Devils Hollow, in spite of its name, 1°F. The first three are the warmest spring readings of any named places in Allen County, and some of the best ground on this map for apricots, peaches and sweet cherries.

Closer in, Westlawn reads 2°F warmer than downtown, and Ansley Acres and Brierwood Hills 1°F. Waynedale, 30 feet above its floor, plans for −20°F, with the benches within 3 miles at −19°F, and runs even with downtown in spring; Avalon next door plans for −20°F and reads 1°F colder. Lincolnshire and Hillcrest, lower at 773 to 776 feet, plan for −22°F and read 1°F to 2°F colder.

New Haven, Woodburn and the old Black Swamp

New Haven sits mostly on the south bank of the Maumee, about where Glacial Lake Maumee reached its farthest west; east of town the old Lincoln Highway follows the lake's southern bank. The town plans for −24°F, 4b, with a typical winter of −9°F, and reads 1°F colder than downtown Fort Wayne in spring. The low ground toward the river runs colder: The Enclave, a mile north at 751 feet, reads 3°F colder. Sunnymede Woods, 50 feet above its floor on the way into Fort Wayne, plans for −21°F and reads 2°F warmer. The old beach ridges along State Road 37 drain well, Purdue's soil mapping shows; the lake deposits right beside them don't.

Past the moraine the Black Swamp opens out toward Ohio. Woodburn, named for the wood burnings that cleared the land, plans for −24°F, but the floor within 3 miles runs −25°F, and Bluecast, 2 miles north, plans for −26°F, the coldest planning low of any named place on the map. Treat those as the safe side: the map plans for −26°F at the Woodburn 3N station, which in 11 years on file has never read colder than −19°F, and the fit behind our planning low leans cold. The spring layer is plainer. Woodburn reads 1°F colder than downtown, Townley 3°F, Tillman 4°F and Five Points 8°F.

Auburn, Garrett and DeKalb County

Auburn sits on Cedar Creek about 20 miles north of Fort Wayne, on the valley floor at 864 feet. It plans for −24°F, 4b, with a typical winter of −9°F, a degree colder than downtown Fort Wayne on both counts, and it's even with downtown on a bloom night. Within 3 miles the floor runs −23°F and the warmest tenth −22°F.

Garrett, just west on the old B&O line at 883 feet, plans for −22°F and is even with downtown in spring. Its two stations are the pair that split 9°F in January 2019, and Garrett 1 S has the latest spring frost of any frost-date station here. Nearby, Saint Johns plans for −23°F and reads 3°F colder in spring, and Cedar, on river-bottom ground, −24°F and 3°F colder. Out east, Saint Joe, on the St. Joseph, plans for −23°F and runs even with downtown; Newville and Spencerville read 2°F colder. Most named places here run even with downtown or colder at bloom, so put the early bloomers on any rise you've got.

Columbia City, Churubusco, Albion and the lake country

Northwest of Fort Wayne the moraines get rough and pocked with kettle lakes; Chain O'Lakes State Park near Albion has 11 of them, Bowen Lake the deepest at 65 feet. Tri-Lakes and Blue Lake are about 5 miles apart, and on a bloom night Tri-Lakes, on its hillside, reads more than 5°F warmer than downtown while Blue Lake, down at its floor, reads 4°F colder.

Columbia City, at 858 feet and 40 feet above its floor, plans for −24°F, 4b, with a typical winter of −8°F, and reads 2°F warmer than downtown in spring; within 3 miles the floor runs −24°F and the coldest tenth −25°F. The Columbia City station, on file since 1964, hit −24°F in January 1985 and again on January 19, 1994. Churubusco, at 896 feet near the Eel River headwaters, plans for −21°F and runs even with downtown. Lake Everett, on dead-flat ground between Arcola and Churubusco, plans for −24°F and reads 4°F colder. Albion, on a toe slope 60 feet above its floor, plans for −22°F and reads 3°F warmer, and Green Center, about 7 miles south-southeast and 80 feet above its floor, 5°F warmer. The old Albion 5 E station, up at 983 feet, ran a median 3°F colder on the year's coldest night than the old Fort Wayne City station. Bender's Orchard in Albion grows 28 apple varieties plus pears and Asian pears.

Huntington, Roanoke and the Forks of the Wabash

Huntington sits at the Forks of the Wabash, where the Little River comes in down the Wabash-Erie Channel. Town center, at 739 feet on the valley floor, plans for −21°F, 4b, with a typical winter of −7°F, and runs even with downtown Fort Wayne in spring. Huntington has more bench ground close by than any other town on the map: within 3 miles the floor plans for −22°F and the benches for −19°F, 5a. The Forks itself, at 711 feet, reads 2°F colder than downtown on a bloom night.

Out of the valley are the mildest winter numbers of any named places on the map, Simpson at −19°F and Lakttun at −18°F, but both sit on flat ground and read 2°F to 3°F colder at bloom. Bowlin, 3 miles south and 70 feet above its floor, is the better all-round spot: −20°F in winter, 2°F warmer at bloom. Markle, upstream on the Wabash, plans for −19°F, 5a, and reads 1°F warmer. Roanoke, which grew up with the Wabash and Erie Canal, plans for −22°F and reads 2°F colder.

Decatur, Ossian and the south end

South of Fort Wayne the land flattens into till plain and the winter number gets milder. Decatur, the Adams County seat on the St. Marys, sits at 802 feet, 20 feet above its floor, and plans for −20°F, MFTC 5a, with a typical winter of −6°F; it runs even with downtown Fort Wayne on a bloom night.

The flat ground between Decatur and the city is where spring catches up. Hoagland plans for −20°F, as mild as Decatur, but reads 3°F colder than downtown at bloom, and Middletown 4°F colder. Ossian, on State Road 1, plans for −21°F and runs even with downtown in spring. South of it the numbers turn colder again: Uniondale −23°F, and Tocsin −25°F and 3°F colder at bloom. Bluffton 6N, six miles north of Bluffton at 861 feet, is the odd station here: one of the colder ones on the worst night (−24°F in January 1985), yet it has the earliest last spring frost and the longest frost-free season of any station on the map.

Spring frost and bloom in Northeast Indiana

Most of what we sell is rated −30°F or colder, and everything rated −25°F or colder clears the winter number almost everywhere on this map. So in Northeast Indiana the question isn't whether a tree lives through January. It's whether it keeps its blossoms through late April and May.

At the Fort Wayne airport station, NOAA station records for 1991 to 2020 put the median last 32°F in spring at April 25 and the last 28°F at April 10; in a late year (1 in 10) the last 32°F comes May 13. The first fall 32°F comes October 17, for 171 frost-free days. The other stations on the map spread about two weeks around that, from April 22 and 177 days at Bluffton 6N to April 30 (May 16 in a late year) and 163 days at Garrett 1 S.

Spring freezes are what cost fruit in Indiana. In 2007 a warm late March pushed buds about two weeks ahead, and a freeze starting April 4 took many peach crops entirely (Purdue's report was from Lafayette). In 2020, late April and early May freezes hit about 70 percent of Indiana's apple crop, according to Purdue's Peter Hirst. In an April 20 to 21 freeze reported in 2021, northern orchards were only at early pink in apples, so damage up here was limited.

Open blossoms of apple, pear, cherry, peach, apricot and plum all start dying at about 28°F. Only about 15 percent of apple blossoms need to set for a crop (University of Minnesota), and fully open haskap flowers take 19°F. Most fruit can lose half its bloom and you'd hardly notice; frost does your thinning. So put apricots, peaches, sweet cherries, plums and pears on the rims and hillsides that read warm, and keep apples, haskap and bush fruit for the lower ground. Clear the dams: a fencerow, a woodlot edge or a road fill across the low side of a slope backs cold air up into the trees above it. Through bloom, mow under 2 inches, don't till, and water a day or two before a frost night.

What the weather records say

The coldest reading on file at any station on the map is −28°F, at the Huntington station on January 11, 1982. Next come −26°F at Garrett 1 S on January 31, 2019, and −24°F at Columbia City, Bluffton 6N, Auburn 2 SSE (January 21, 1984) and the old Fort Wayne City station. The Fort Wayne airport's coldest in 85 years is −22°F on January 20, 1985, a day the Weather Service says topped out at −11°F. Older still, Rapin Andrews of Huntertown kept a weather diary from 1839, and it records −34°F on January 29, 1873.

You'll see Fort Wayne listed in USDA zones 5b and 6a (Wikipedia's listing). USDA's zones are built on the average of each winter's coldest night, and the airport station's average yearly low is −8°F, which lands in 6a. Ours are built on the bad night we plan for, and NOAA station records show the worst night in about 30 winters runs a median 13°F below a station's average winter low. That's why downtown Fort Wayne comes out 4b on our scale.

What you can grow around Fort Wayne

The south end and the mild rims, −21°F or warmer

Decatur, Markle, Hoagland, Bowlin, Huntington's benches, Waynedale and the high ground around Aboite.

• Apples: Honeycrisp (−45°F); Liberty and Ashmead's Kernel (−35°F); Glockenapfel (−25°F). Baldwin (−20°F) clears at Decatur, Hoagland and Markle and is worth a try elsewhere in this band.
• Peaches and nectarines, on the warm rims and at Decatur and Markle: Contender and Blushingstar (−30°F), Redstar and Glohaven (−25°F), Hardired nectarine (−25°F). Blushingstar came through −25°F at our place on January 13, 2024 without damage.
• Sweet cherries: Lapins (−35°F), Rainier (−30°F), Stella (−25°F); Bing (−20°F) clears at Decatur and Markle.
• Apricots on the highest ground: Tomcot and Harlayne (−30°F). Pears off the low ground: Harrow Sweet and D'Anjou (−30°F).
• Nuts and others: Rhodes Heartnut, Purvis Hardy English Walnut and Montana Trial Persimmon (−25°F), Montana Trial Pawpaw (−30°F).

Most of the map, −21°F to −24°F

Downtown Fort Wayne, New Haven, Huntertown, Auburn, Garrett, Columbia City, Churubusco, Albion and Roanoke. Everything rated −25°F or colder clears; the −20°F ones are only worth a try against a south wall in town.

• Apples: Haralson, Golden Russet, Empire and Northern Spy; for cider, Franklin Cider and Binet Rouge.
• Peaches on your best rise: Contender, Blushingstar and Siberian C (−35°F). Tom McCamant grows Contender at Forbidden Fruit Orchard in Paradise, Montana, and it's the only commercial peach we know of that has taken −32°F.
• Cherries: Lapins and White Gold sweet cherries (−35°F) up high; Montmorency tart cherry (−35°F).
• Plums on higher ground: Superior and Italian (−35°F). Toka is a good pollenizer for Superior; the pollination maps show what pairs with what.
• Pears on a slope, not in the bottoms: Bartlett (−35°F), Flemish Beauty (−40°F). Grapes off the frost pockets, since clustered fruit forgives less: Marquette (−35°F).

The cold bottoms and the lake plain, colder than −24°F

Bluecast and the floor around Woodburn, Five Points, Ormas and Tocsin, plus, for bloom, any bottom that reads 4°F or more colder than downtown in spring (Lake Everett, Blue Lake, Aboite). Everything rated −30°F or colder clears; the −25°F ones are worth a try in a good spot. This is frost ground, so plant what forgives a cold bloom night: Wealthy and Haralson apples, the Kerr and Trailman applecrabs, honeyberries, Montana Black Currant, Red Lake currant, Pixwell gooseberry and aronia. Red Lake and Montana Black Currant fruited well for us in 2026 after their flower buds saw about 22°F.

Roots, soil and site

Roots are the weak link. At Ed Schultz's farm in Gallatin Gateway, Montana, Bud 118 apple rootstock has seen near −50°F with no damage, under snow. Wisconsin's snowless 2024 to 2025 winter left apple damage just below the graft union, so mulch the root zone and keep the soil moist going into winter. Much of this map is wet, poorly drained ground (Blount and Pewamo on the till plain, Hoytville on the lake plain, muck in the old marshes), so test before you plant: dig 2 feet, fill it, let it drain, refill it, and under 10 hours is well drained. Bob Purvis's rule fits this country: an east-facing slope is ideal, on the slope but not in the bottom, with nothing damming cold air at its foot. We taper water from mid-August in zone 4 so trees harden off. Purdue Extension names apple scab, fire blight and powdery mildew as the diseases to watch here. If you're down the Maumee toward Toledo, the Toledo, Bowling Green and Monroe map covers you.

Fruit history here

John Chapman, Johnny Appleseed, died in Fort Wayne (March 18, 1845, by the Indiana papers, though sources differ). He grew apples from seed, was against grafting, and most of what his seedlings bore went to hard cider. One of his properties on the Maumee east of the city became a nursery of about 15,000 trees on 42 acres: river ground, the kind the map shows holding cold today. His marked grave is in Archer Park beside Johnny Appleseed Park, though the Canterbury Green site is claimed too, and the Johnny Appleseed Festival has run there the third full weekend of September since 1975. If you want to plant the way he did, we sell Wealthy, Haralson and McIntosh seedlings and Yellow Transparent seedlings in bundles of ten, all rated −40°F or colder.

Questions people ask

What zone is Fort Wayne, Indiana?

Downtown Fort Wayne plans for −23°F, MFTC zone 4b, with a typical winter of −8°F. Across the map it runs from 5a around Decatur and Markle to 4a on the lake plain north of Woodburn. You'll see Fort Wayne listed in USDA zones 5b and 6a; USDA's zone is based on an average winter, ours on the bad night we plan for.

When is the last frost in Fort Wayne?

At the Fort Wayne airport station, NOAA station records for 1991 to 2020 put the median last 32°F at April 25 and the last 28°F at April 10; in a late year (1 in 10) the last 32°F comes May 13. The airport's first fall 32°F comes October 17, for 171 frost-free days.

Can you grow peaches in Fort Wayne?

Yes. Cook's Orchard on the north side grows its own, and Cedar Creek Produce in Leo-Cedarville has u-pick peaches. Contender and Blushingstar (−30°F) clear the planning low at every named place on the map, and Redstar and Glohaven (−25°F) almost everywhere. Winter isn't the problem; bloom is, so plant them on warm rims like Timbercrest, Ellison and Liberty Hills, not on the flats.

Where are the frost pockets around Fort Wayne?

River bottoms, draws and the flat old lake bed. On a still bloom night Five Points, between New Haven and Woodburn, reads 8°F colder than downtown Fort Wayne; Keiser, south of Columbia City, 5°F colder; Lake Everett, Blue Lake, Aboite and Tillman 4°F colder; Huntertown and Hoagland 3°F colder. The warm spring ground is the rims and hillsides: Timbercrest and Green Center read 5°F warmer, Tri-Lakes more than 5°F warmer.

What fruit trees grow in Northeast Indiana?

Planning lows on this map run from −18°F to −26°F, and most of our list is rated −30°F or colder, so apples, pears, plums, tart and sweet cherries, peaches and the bush fruit all fit, with apricots on the warmest ground. Pick by site: early bloomers on the rims and hillsides, apples, haskap and currants on the lower 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.