Fruit Trees for Lansing, East Lansing, Flint and Owosso, Michigan

In the January 1981 cold snap the Lansing airport hit −29°F, its record, while St. Johns, 17 miles north, bottomed out at −13°F. Mid-Michigan looks flat and even from the road, but on a calm, clear night it isn't. Choosing fruit trees for Lansing, East Lansing, Flint and Owosso starts with where your yard sits on that ground: in a river bottom, out on a flat plain, or a few dozen feet up a slope that lets the cold slide past.

This map takes in the Capital Region (Lansing, East Lansing, Okemos, Holt, DeWitt), Clinton County north to St. Johns, Shiawassee County around Owosso and Durand, and the Flint side from Flushing and Grand Blanc down to Fenton and Holly. 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

Each spot gets a 30-year planning low, the number our cold hardiness calculator works from, fit to NOAA station records since the 1995-96 winter and nudged for the terrain right there. It's the bad night worth planning a tree around, not the record, and we don't attach odds to it. The MFTC zone puts that number in half zones. Typical winter is an ordinary year's coldest night, the basis of USDA zones and the reason they read milder than ours. The spring layer is the bloom-night reading, in degrees warmer or colder than downtown Lansing on a still, clear night.

Downtown Lansing, the reference, plans for −21°F, MFTC zone 4b, typical winter −9°F, which is also the middle of the map; half its growing ground falls between −22°F and −19°F. The coldest ground is the southeast lake country and the Flint plain: Hartland Township plans for −25°F, zone 4a, the coldest named place on the map, with Holly and Flint at −24°F. The mildest is the north end around St. Johns (−12°F, zone 5b), Elsie and Duplain (−16°F). On bloom nights the named places run from 6°F colder than downtown Lansing in a creek draw in Tyrone Township to 5°F warmer on Hickory Ridge, a hillside 100 feet above its floor south of Holly.

Why the map looks the way it does

No Great Lake reaches this far. The map sits well inland between Lake Michigan and Saginaw Bay, and it straddles the divide between them: the west half drains to Lake Michigan through the Grand and its tributaries (the Red Cedar, Looking Glass and Maple), the east half north to Saginaw Bay through the Shiawassee and the Flint. Without big open water to warm the nights, what decides the cold here is the ground itself, and the ground is mostly low relief, a till plain and the old bed of glacial Lake Saginaw, with the rivers running in meltwater channels much bigger than the streams in them now.

That flatness is the key. A flat plain gives cold air nowhere to drain, so it pools in place, and a wide, shallow basin can get colder than a deep valley with an outlet. Most towns here have no bench ground at all within 3 miles; Flint's floor plans for −23°F and its coldest tenth −24°F. A few miles can matter a lot on ground like this. Flint's long-record NOAA station, at 770 feet, has run a median 4°F colder in the year's worst cold than the Flint 7W station, 5 miles away and 90 feet lower. We haven't found a published explanation for that pair, but it's a reminder that height alone doesn't set the cold.

Which part of the map gets hit hardest changes from one outbreak to the next. In the January 1981 cold snap the Lansing airport, on the Northwestside north of the Grand, read −29°F while Owosso read −18°F and St. Johns −13°F. In February 2015 the cold went east: −27°F at the General Motors proving ground near Milford, at the map's southeast edge, −26°F at Corunna and −25°F at Flint, against −16°F at the Lansing airport and −7°F at St. Johns. A 20°F spread in one cold snap, on country with a few hundred feet of relief, is why no single station speaks for the whole map; the planning low blends them all.

Town ground runs milder on still nights. In that 2015 snap the Corunna 2 NE station, 2 miles northeast of Corunna, read −26°F while the Owosso wastewater plant station read −18°F, and the gap showed again in 2004 (−16°F against −8°F) and 2017 (−12°F against −7°F). Buildings and pavement store heat and block the open sky, most of all on calm nights. The map gives built-up ground up to 2.5°F, so town heat would explain only part of a gap that size; we can't explain the rest from published sources.

The southeast corner is the exception to the flat rule. Around Holly, Fenton and Linden the upper Shiawassee runs between east-west moraines, till and outwash plains, past lakes, headwater swamps and fens. It's the highest ground on the map (Holly at 928 feet, Highland Charter Township's point at 1,074 feet) and still the coldest on our numbers, with the Milford station's −27°F behind it; ground broken into hollows, swamps and lake basins gives cold air plenty of places to pool. The benches there plan 2°F to 4°F warmer than the floors, and the best bloom-night reading of any named place on the map is a hillside here.

Snow and soil do the rest. Lansing gets about 51 inches of snow a year and sits fairly sheltered from lake-effect snow; Owosso's station averages about 38. That's a thin blanket for roots, and a classic 1920 study found frost went 24 inches into bare soil but only 6 inches where snow was held by corn stubble. Around St. Johns the ground is organic muck, the mint country, and low organic ground is frost-prone. The Mason esker, a ridge of sand and gravel from DeWitt through Lansing and Holt to Mason, is the opposite kind of ground, though most of it has been dug out for road gravel.

Downtown Lansing, Old Town, REO Town and the river neighborhoods

Lansing grew where the Red Cedar meets the Grand, and the original Biddle City plat sat in a floodplain under water most of the year. The river is still the city's cold line. Downtown, Old Town and the Stadium District, on the river bottom, plan for −22°F; REO Town, Lady Hill, the Museum District and Cherry Hill −23°F. River Point, in a draw by the river south of downtown, plans for −23°F and reads 4°F colder than downtown on a bloom night, Willow reads 3°F colder, and the Museum District reads 6°F colder, the coldest spring reading of the city neighborhoods we checked.

Step off the bottom and it improves. The Westside, 40 feet above its floor, plans for −20°F, zone 5a; Greencroft Park and Edgemont Park −21°F and 1°F warmer than downtown at bloom. Potter-Walsh, on a toe slope 50 feet up southeast of downtown, plans for −20°F and reads 4°F warmer at bloom, the best spot we checked in the city for early bloomers. Old Everett, Kaynorth, Forest View, Waverly and Bretton Woods plan for −21°F. To the southwest, Dimondale on the Grand plans for −23°F and reads 3°F colder than downtown at bloom, and Whaley Drain, on its floor west of Dimondale, 5°F colder.

Holt, on the Mason esker's route south of the city, plans for −19°F, zone 5a, among the warmest tenth of the ground around it, though it reads 2°F colder than downtown at bloom. On Lansing's higher lots, Redstar peaches and Stella sweet cherries (−25°F) clear −21°F by 4°F, Blushingstar peaches and Goldrich apricots (−30°F) by 9°F, and Superior plums (−35°F) by more. Down in the river neighborhoods, stick with apples like Northern Spy (−30°F) and Spartan (−40°F) and bush fruit.

East Lansing, Okemos, Haslett and the Red Cedar

The Red Cedar runs about 51 miles from Cedar Lake in Livingston County through Fowlerville, Williamston, Okemos and the MSU campus to the Grand, and its bottom is the cold ground on this side. Brody, on the river bottom on the west side of East Lansing, plans for −23°F and reads 3°F colder than downtown Lansing at bloom. Okemos, right on its floor where the river runs through town, plans for −22°F and reads 3°F colder; Williamston, −22°F and 2°F colder. The river froze solid enough for MSU's first hockey season in 1922.

East Lansing plans for −20°F, zone 5a, typical winter −8°F, and reads 1°F colder than downtown Lansing at bloom. Its neighborhoods differ by a degree or two: the River Trail Neighborhood −20°F, the East Neighborhood −21°F, the North and South neighborhoods −22°F, with the South Neighborhood 3°F colder at bloom. Meridian Charter Township plans for −21°F and reads about even with downtown Lansing at bloom. Haslett, on Lake Lansing (about 461 acres and 34 feet at its deepest), plans for −21°F. The lake freezes over in winter, and a frozen lake does nothing for a January night.

Two old stations show how much a couple of miles can matter: the East Lansing Experiment Farm station, at 889 feet, ran a median 3°F warmer than the old East Lansing station 2 miles away, and its record over 1911 to 1960 was only −13°F. On the Red Cedar bottoms, plant Haralson (−45°F) and Liberty (−35°F) apples, Honeyberry (−50°F) and Titania currants (−40°F), and keep pears and stone fruit off the river.

DeWitt, Bath, St. Johns and the Clinton County farm country

North of Lansing the Looking Glass River runs west through DeWitt, the north end of the Mason esker. DeWitt plans for −21°F but reads 2°F warmer than downtown Lansing at bloom, and Bath, on a toe slope 50 feet up, plans for −19°F and reads 2°F warmer too. The low spots go the other way: Gunnisonville and Valley Farms read 3°F colder, and so does Laingsburg (−19°F), where the Looking Glass turns west just south of town.

St. Johns, about 18 miles north of Lansing, plans for −12°F, zone 5b, typical winter −1°F, and reads 3°F warmer than downtown Lansing at bloom, the warmest of any town on the map. Take that with some caution. The number leans on the St. Johns station, which read only −7°F in the February 2015 cold snap; the station's own 30-year number is −15°F, and its record, −19°F, has been reached more than once (1951, 1972 and 1994). The town is also ringed by organic muck, where Clinton County grows more mint than any other Michigan county, and low muck ground is frost-prone. Along the Maple River, Ovid plans for −19°F and Elsie −16°F; Lake Ovid at Sleepy Hollow State Park, a 410-acre impoundment, is the biggest water around.

This end of the map clears almost everything we sell. Around St. Johns, Bing cherries and Flavortop nectarines (−20°F) have room by the planning low, but give them margin over the station's −15°F: plant them on a rise, not the muck. Glohaven peaches and Hardired nectarines (−25°F) and Harrow Sweet pears (−30°F) suit DeWitt's and Bath's warmer slopes.

Owosso, Corunna, Durand and the Shiawassee

The Shiawassee comes in from Genesee County, runs through Byron, Corunna and Owosso, and leaves north for Saginaw County. Owosso, at 738 feet on the river, plans for −19°F, zone 5a, and reads 2°F colder than downtown Lansing at bloom. Corunna, the county seat, plans for −20°F on its river bottom but reads 4°F colder at bloom, and the coldest tenth of the ground around it plans for −24°F. Kerby, on the river bottom east of Corunna, plans for −23°F and reads 4°F colder.

The Owosso wastewater plant station has 98 years on file, a record of −26°F (February 5, 1918), and a median last 32°F on April 29 with 161 frost-free days, among the best on the map. Durand, the old rail junction that started as Vernon Center, plans for −21°F and reads about even with downtown Lansing at bloom. Perry plans for −19°F, Morrice −18°F, Bancroft and Lennon −20°F, and Byron, in a creek draw, −22°F. Few rises read warm at bloom: Newburg, 60 feet above its floor west of Durand, reads 3°F warmer than downtown Lansing, while Union Plains and Five Points North read 4°F colder.

Shiawassee County is apple and plum country by our numbers. Plant Honeycrisp (−45°F), Cortland (−40°F), Ashmead's Kernel (−35°F) and Roxbury Russet (−30°F) apples, and Toka and Mount Royal (−45°F) plums on the higher ground. Toka is a good pollenizer for Superior.

Flint, Burton, Grand Blanc, Flushing and Swartz Creek

Flint grew at the Grand Traverse, the ford on the Flint River where Jacob Smith built his trading post in 1819. Genesee County is mostly very flat, low and rolling south and east of the city and flatter to the northwest. Flint plans for −24°F, zone 4b, typical winter −9°F, right on its floor with no bench ground within 3 miles, and reads about even with downtown Lansing at bloom. The East Village, on the East Side, plans for −23°F. Burton plans for −22°F, Swartz Creek and Grand Blanc −23°F, and Beecher, 60 feet above its floor north of the city, −20°F.

Flushing, at 699 feet the lowest town on the map, sits on the Flint River in sandy loam and plans for −22°F on the river bottom, 2°F colder than downtown Lansing at bloom. Flint's station, with 129 years on file and a record of −28°F (February 14, 1916), has the shortest frost season of the six stations here with frost dates: a median last 32°F on May 6, a first on October 9 and 150 days between, and one spring in ten the last 32°F comes May 26 or later.

At −24°F, Flint is still good apple ground: Wealthy (−50°F), Golden Russet (−40°F), Macoun and Empire (−35°F). Lapins and Gold sweet cherries (−35°F), Siberian C peaches (−35°F) and Contender (−30°F) have room in winter; plant them on the best-drained, highest part of the lot because of that late frost. The −25°F peaches are a close call here.

Fenton, Linden, Holly, Hartland and the lake country

South of Flint the land rises into moraines and outwash with lakes everywhere: Lake Fenton, Lake Ponemah below Fenton's dam, Byram Lake at Linden, and the Shiawassee's headwater swamps around Holly. Fenton, at 902 feet, plans for −23°F, with benches nearby at −21°F. Linden, on its river bottom, plans for −21°F and reads 4°F colder than downtown Lansing at bloom. Holly, on its river bottom at 928 feet, plans for −24°F, with benches nearby at −21°F.

Hartland Township plans for −25°F, zone 4a, with its floor at −24°F and benches at −21°F; Parshallville, on its floor north of Hartland, −24°F and 3°F colder at bloom. Tyrone Township's point, in a creek draw, plans for −23°F and reads 6°F colder than downtown Lansing at bloom, the coldest spring reading of any named place on the map, yet the township's benches plan for −20°F. Highland Charter Township's point, 80 feet above its floor at 1,074 feet, reads 3°F warmer at bloom, and Hickory Ridge, a hillside at 1,115 feet where the cold drains on past, 5°F warmer. West toward Howell, Fowlerville and Webberville plan for −21°F.

The Milford proving ground station at the map's southeast edge has this corner's long record: 69 years, with −27°F on February 20, 2015. Pick the hillside over the hollow here, every time. On the floors, plant Kerr and Centennial applecrabs (−50°F; Ed Schultz saw zero winter injury on Centennial after a winter that hit −47°F), Frostbite apples (−45°F) and Aronia Berry (−50°F). On the benches and slopes, go with Luscious pears and Meteor tart cherries (−40°F), and Summercrisp pears and Westcot apricots (−45°F).

Spring frost and bloom in Mid-Michigan

Over 1991 to 2020, NOAA station records show the median last 32°F frost coming April 29 at Owosso and St. Johns, May 4 at the Lansing airport, May 6 at Flint and May 9 at the Milford proving ground. The last 28°F, about where open blossoms start to die, runs from April 16 at St. Johns to April 26 at Lansing and Flint and April 27 at Milford. One spring in ten the last 32°F comes May 26 at Flint and May 27 at Lansing, and the frost-free season runs from 150 days at Flint to 163 at St. Johns.

2012 showed what that means. After March highs in the 80s °F woke the trees, the cold came back, and Uncle John's Cider Mill near St. Johns harvested no fruit at all. Just southeast of the map, Erwin's Orchards in South Lyon lost its whole apple crop, 175 acres, plus 3 acres of sweet cherries, at 23°F for six hours on April 29. In late April 2026, Country Mill Farms in Charlotte, just southwest of the map, put it at about 10 percent loss at 28°F and up to 90 percent at 25°F, and ran propane wind machines at night to pull warmer air down. MSU Extension notes that apricots and peaches bloom early and take the brunt of spring frost.

The spring layer is narrow here (the named places run from 6°F colder than downtown Lansing to 5°F warmer) because the relief is narrow. That makes small differences count. The University of Minnesota's fruit team says even 20 feet of drop within an orchard can make a difference, and NC State's figures say 3°F to 4°F can be the difference between no crop and a full one. The warm bloom-night ground is the hillsides of the lake country (Hickory Ridge, Highland), the toe slopes around Lansing (Potter-Walsh, Bath, DeWitt) and the rises in Shiawassee County (Newburg). The cold is every creek draw and river bottom: Tyrone Township's draw, Whaley Drain, the Shiawassee at Corunna, Kerby and Linden, and River Point on the Grand.

On ground this flat, the site rules matter more, not less. Our friend Bob Purvis likes an east-facing slope, which warms fast on a frosty spring morning; a north slope holds early bloomers like apricots and plums back. Stay off the windswept top and out of the bottom, and clear brush or a tree line that dams cold air at the foot of a slope. Haskap flowers take 19°F wide open, apples need only about 15 percent of their blossoms to set, and sweet cherries can lose half and still crop, so apples and haskap take the lower ground and apricots, peaches and sweet cherries the high spots.

What the weather records say

The coldest readings in NOAA station records here: the Lansing airport's −29°F (January 4, 1981), Flint's −28°F (February 14, 1916), Howell's −28°F (January 20, 1892, at the map's south edge), the Milford proving ground's −27°F (February 20, 2015), and −26°F at Owosso (February 5, 1918) and Corunna 2 NE (February 21, 2015). In January 1976 Flint and the Lansing airport both read −25°F; in January 1994 the stations ran close together, from −23°F at Milford to −18°F at Lansing.

Since 1995 the coldest readings at most of these stations haven't reached their own 30-year numbers, but a few have. In the 2014-15 winter Corunna's −26°F went past its 30-year number of −25°F, and the Owosso airport's −22°F past its −19°F. USDA's zone is usually given as 5b for Lansing and 6a for Flint. Ours put both in 4b, because USDA averages each winter's coldest night and we plan for the bad one.

What you can grow here

Ninety-eight percent of the growing ground on this map plans between −25°F and −14°F, and almost everything we sell has come through −25°F or colder, so winter rules out very little. Pick by spot and by bloom.

The milder ground, −20°F and warmer (St. Johns, Elsie, Duplain, Owosso, Holt, East Lansing, Bath, Laingsburg, Perry, Morrice): Zestar!® (−40°F) and Baldwin (−20°F) apples, Bartlett (−35°F) and D'Anjou (−30°F) pears, Italian (−35°F) and Stanley (−30°F) plums, Rainier and Skeena sweet cherries (−30°F), Risingstar peaches (−25°F), Tomcot apricots (−30°F) and Marquette grapes (−35°F). Bing and the −20°F nectarines clear this band too, with the most room around St. Johns, Elsie and Duplain.

The middle of the map, −21°F to −23°F (Lansing, Okemos, Haslett, Williamston, DeWitt, Durand, Burton, Grand Blanc, Swartz Creek, Fenton): the same list, with the −25°F peaches like Redstar and Glohaven clearing by 2°F to 4°F. Bing and Baldwin (−20°F) are worth a try only on your warmest, best-drained spot.

The coldest ground, −24°F to −25°F (Flint, Holly, Hartland, Parshallville and the lake-country floors): apples rated −30°F and colder, Kerr and Centennial applecrabs, Evan's Bali tart cherries (−45°F), Black Ice plums (−40°F) and Siberian C peaches on any rise, plus Honeyberry, Red Lake currants, Hinnomaki Red gooseberries and Nova raspberries (all −40°F or colder). The −25°F peaches barely clear −24°F and are only worth a try at Hartland's −25°F.

MSU Extension says apples, pears, pawpaws and most sweet cherries need a compatible pollenizer within about 100 feet, while peaches, nectarines and tart cherries don't; our pollination maps show which of ours go together. MSU wants sandy loam to loam at pH 6.0 to 7.0, with berms or raised beds on heavy clay like the old lake clays north of Owosso and Flushing, and lists apple scab, codling moth and fire blight on apples, fire blight and pear psylla on pears, brown rot on stone fruit and black knot on plums as the problems to plan for. Taper water from mid-August so trees harden off, but don't send the soil into winter bone dry, since dry soil means more root death. Southeast of here, the Ann Arbor and Metro Detroit map picks up, and to the west the Grand Rapids and Fruit Ridge map.

Fruit history here

MSU's W.J. Beal Botanical Garden in East Lansing, begun in 1873, is called the oldest continuous botanical garden in the country, and an arctic kiwi grows there; our Hardy Kiwi Vines have come through −40°F. In Flint, Applewood, the C.S. Mott estate on East Kearsley Street, was laid out from 1916 to 1921 and still keeps an orchard of 29 heritage apple varieties and a grape arbor. Around St. Johns the muck went to mint (Crosby Mint Farm dates to 1912), and Uncle John's Cider Mill is in the St. Johns area.

Questions people ask

What hardiness zone is Lansing, Michigan?

Downtown Lansing plans for −21°F, MFTC zone 4b, with a typical winter of −9°F. USDA's zone for Lansing is usually given as 5b. USDA averages each winter's coldest night, and we plan for the bad one, so ours reads colder.

What zone is Flint, Michigan?

Flint plans for −24°F, MFTC zone 4b, with a typical winter of −9°F, and the Flint station's record is −28°F (February 14, 1916). USDA's zone for Flint is usually given as 6a, based on an average winter.

When is the last frost in Lansing?

At the Lansing airport, NOAA station records for 1991 to 2020 show a median last 32°F frost of May 4 and its last 28°F on April 26, with 157 frost-free days; one spring in ten the last 32°F comes May 27 or later. Creek draws and river bottoms frost later than that.

Can you grow peaches in Lansing?

Yes. Redstar and Glohaven (−25°F) clear Lansing's −21°F planning low by 4°F, and Blushingstar and Contender (−30°F) and Siberian C (−35°F) have more room. Give them a toe slope or rise like Potter-Walsh, Bath or DeWitt, since peaches bloom early; those spots read 2°F to 4°F warmer than downtown on bloom nights. Keep them off the river bottom.

Where are the frost pockets around Lansing and Flint?

The river bottoms and creek draws. On a still bloom night Tyrone Township's draw reads 6°F colder than downtown Lansing, Whaley Drain 5°F, River Point on the Grand and the Shiawassee at Corunna, Kerby and Linden 4°F. In winter the lake-country floors around Hartland, Holly and Parshallville plan for −24°F to −25°F.

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.