What actually grows here.
You don't need to know your growing zone to start — you just need to know your town. Pick your city and we'll show you the zone, the frost window, and the plants that actually survive there.
Learn it. Plan it. Build it.
- 1
Learn what grows here
Start with 165 plants that survive Montana — filtered by your zone, your water use and how much the deer will eat.
Browse the plant database - 2
Design your yard
Drop those plants onto a picture of your own yard in the planner. It takes about a minute, and you come out with a plan you can hand to someone.
Launch the yard planner - 3
Get it built
Take your plan to a landscaper near you. See what the work should cost first, so you know what a fair quote looks like.
Find a pro near you
The planner is the same drag-and-drop tool landscapers embed on their own sites — you design it, and the finished plan is what you hand to whoever does the work.
165 that survive here.
Native and adapted species, each checked against Montana's growing conditions — filterable by type, hardiness zone, water use, deer pressure and whether it is native.
Find your city. See your numbers.
Elevation drives the season in Montana far more than latitude does — which is why Butte gets about 92 frost-free days and Glendive gets about 160. Filter the list to your town.
| City | Hardiness zone | Frost-free days | Elevation | Annual precip. | Growing region | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BillingsLongest season of the big cities | 5a | ~150 | 3,153 ft | 14.3" | Yellowstone & Beartooth | Full guide |
| MissoulaCold air pools on the valley floor | 5b | ~150 | 3,198 ft | 14.1" | Missoula & Bitterroot Valleys | Full guide |
| BozemanHigh elevation, short season | 4b | ~126 | 4,806 ft | 20.0" | Gallatin, Madison, Park & Beaverhead | Full guide |
| Great FallsChinook country, long season | 4b | ~155 | 3,398 ft | 14.8" | Helena Valley & Upper Missouri | Full guide |
| KalispellShort season, mild lows | 5b | ~110 | 2,984 ft | 16.8" | Flathead & Mission Valleys | Full guide |
| HelenaOne of the driest valleys in the state | 4b – 5a | ~149 | 4,068 ft | 11.4" | Helena Valley & Upper Missouri | Full guide |
| ButteShortest growing season in the state | 4a – 5a | ~92 | 5,539 ft | 12.8" | Gallatin, Madison, Park & Beaverhead | Full guide |
| BelgradeGallatin Valley cold drainage | 4b | ~120 | 4,452 ft | —" | Gallatin, Madison, Park & Beaverhead | Full guide |
| WhitefishShoreline moderation from the lake | 5a – 5b | ~138 | 2,998 ft | 19.9" | Flathead & Mission Valleys | Full guide |
| LivingstonWind and a narrow window | 5a | ~116 | 4,557 ft | —" | Gallatin, Madison, Park & Beaverhead | Full guide |
| HamiltonBitterroot fruit country | 5b – 6a | ~130 | 3,625 ft | —" | Missoula & Bitterroot Valleys | Full guide |
| PolsonLatest first frost in the state | 5b – 6a | ~155 | 2,930 ft | 15.0" | Flathead & Mission Valleys | Full guide |
| Columbia FallsShort season near the park | 5a – 5b | ~110 | 3,002 ft | —" | Flathead & Mission Valleys | Full guide |
| HavreWind and dry cold | 4a | ~136 | 2,493 ft | 11.8" | Milk River & Northern Plains | Full guide |
| Miles CityLong season out on the plains | 4a – 4b | ~151 | 2,362 ft | 12.9" | Powder River & Lower Yellowstone | Full guide |
| SidneyLowest elevation in the state | 4a | ~144 | 1,967 ft | —" | Powder River & Lower Yellowstone | Full guide |
| GlendiveLongest growing season in the state | 4a | ~160 | 2,053 ft | 14.9" | Powder River & Lower Yellowstone | Full guide |
| LewistownHigh plains, wetter than expected | 4b | ~143 | 3,936 ft | 17.2" | Helena Valley & Upper Missouri | Full guide |
| Red LodgeHighest town in the state | 5a | ~116 | 5,562 ft | 22.7" | Yellowstone & Beartooth | Full guide |
Zones from the 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Frost-free days are approximate single-station estimates at roughly the 50% probability level and vary within a town. Precipitation is NOAA 1991–2020 normals.
What are you actually dealing with?
Places to dig in.
Cities
Nineteen Montana cities with their own hardiness zone, frost window, elevation and rainfall — and a page for each one.
Plants
Species proven here, matched to the soil and the season. Sourced from MSU Extension and the 2023 USDA map, not a national template.
Climate & Zones
Hardiness zones, frost dates, planting calendars, water-wise design and fire-smart landscaping — the conditions every other decision depends on.
Problems & Pests
Yellow lawns, winter burn, noxious weeds and fire risk. How to tell what you're looking at, and what to do about it.
Growing Regions
Regions group towns that behave alike. Useful for a second question — what grows like it does here — once you know your city.
History
Orchards, shelterbelts, and the escapees that became problems. Why the plants we choose today become the landscape of the next century.
Find a Pro
Honest Montana pricing, the seasonal calendar, and how to tell a real quote from a bad one — then get matched with a vetted local landscaper.
Seven growing regions.
Regions group towns that behave alike. They're useful for a second question — what else grows like it does here — but you don't need to pick one to start. Your city page tells you which you're in.
All 58 guides.
Montana Growing Zones Explained: What Actually Grows Where You Live
Montana is not one climate. It is at least a dozen, stacked from the floor of the Flathead Valley to the shoulder of the Beartooths, and the distance between those…
When to Plant in Montana: A Month-by-Month Guide for a Short Season
You have roughly 90 to 160 frost-free days, depending on which valley you live in. One late-May frost can erase six weeks of work you did indoors under a shop light.
Landscaping in Bozeman: What Actually Survives Zone 4b and a Short Season
The shrub went in during June and looked like it belonged there straight through August. Then winter arrived, and by the following May you were pulling sticks out…
How Much Does Landscaping Cost in Montana? Honest Current Numbers
How these figures were compiled. The four publisher names that repeat in the Source columns below, Angi and HomeGuide and Fixr and ProMatcher, are there…
The Best Trees for Montana: What Survives the Wind, the Cold, and the Alkaline Soil
Three summers ago you planted a maple. You watered it when the tag told you to water it, you staked it against the wind, you did everything right. Today it stands…
Montana Native Plants for Landscaping: 40+ Species That Belong Here
The nursery rack is full of plants that evolved somewhere else. They evolved for rain in August, for soil that is not full of calcium, for a winter that lets up.…
Landscaping in Billings: Zone 5a, Alkaline Soil, and a Longer Season Than You Think
Everyone tells you eastern Montana is the hardest place in the state to grow anything. Whoever told you that has never put the calendars side by side. Billings gets…
Deer-Resistant Plants for Montana (and the Honest Truth About "Deer-Proof")
You planted it in May. You watered it all summer, mulched it, bragged about it to the neighbor. Then you walked out one morning in September and found a stem…
Why Is My Montana Lawn Yellow? A Diagnostic Guide
You watered it. You fed it. And in the third week of June, your Montana lawn went yellow anyway.
Fire-Resistant Plants and Defensible Space for Montana Homes
The letter says your premium doubled.
Landscaping in Missoula: Zone 5b, Cold Air Pools, and What Really Grows Here
You planted the flowering cherry in the low back corner because that's where it looked best against the fence. It died the first winter. Your neighbor set the same…
Montana Frost-Free Days by City — and Why Your Neighbor's Is Different
Your first frost date is not a state number.
Xeriscaping in Montana: A Water-Wise Yard Without the Gravel Desert
Say the word "xeriscape" to most Montana homeowners and they picture red gravel, a few boulders, and a lonely cactus. That image is a marketing accident, and it is…
Winter Burn in Montana: Why Your Evergreens Turn Brown (and How to Stop It)
In October it was a blue-green spruce, dense and healthy, and you'd already pictured it at twenty feet. By February the south side is straw-colored, not dead in any…
Noxious Weeds in Montana: What the Law Requires You to Do
A patch of oxeye daisy in the back corner of a quarter-acre lot in town. That is where most Montana homeowners first meet this law.
How Plants Got to Montana: Orchards, Shelterbelts, and the Ones That Got Away
Almost nothing growing in Montana is from Montana.
The Growing Regions of Montana: Why Your Neighbor's Garden Doesn't Look Like Yours
Two hours of driving, just to stand in a garden a stranger on the internet swore was "the same climate as yours." It wasn't. Their tomatoes climbed eight feet up a…
Landscaping in Kalispell and the Flathead: Longer Days, Colder Nights, and the Best Microclimates in Montana
Two houses on the same lake, four miles apart.
Landscaping in Butte: Gardening at 5,500 Feet With 92 Frost-Free Days
You put the tomatoes in over Memorial Day weekend. They grew. They flowered. They set fruit. Then somewhere around the third week of August the whole bed went black…
Landscaping in Great Falls: A Long Season in Chinook Country
Great Falls hands you one number before it hands you anything else.
Landscaping in Helena: A Dry Valley With Limey Soil
Every evening you water the lawn, and every morning it looks tired anyway. You plant a maple. By August the leaves have gone yellow with green veins laced through…
Landscaping in Belgrade: The Gallatin Valley's Cold Drainage
Here is the thing nobody tells you when you buy a new-build lot in Belgrade. The coldest spot in the Gallatin Valley is not up the hill. It is down at the bottom,…
Landscaping in Whitefish: Lake Moderation and a Mild Microclimate
You moved here from somewhere greener, and you did what any sensible gardener would do: you planted what worked back home. The rhododendron sulked, and the bigleaf…
Landscaping in Livingston: Gardening in the Wind Tunnel
The shrub on the west side of the house comes back a little shorter every year. Year one it was knee-high and loaded with bloom. Year four it is a stub with three…
Landscaping in Hamilton: The Bitterroot's Fruit Country
You bought the house in the Bitterroot partly for that view. Then you spent two springs watching the apple tree throw a beautiful set of blossoms in early May, and…
Landscaping in Polson: The Mildest Climate in Montana
Two gardens, twenty minutes apart, on the same October afternoon. The one by the water still has tomatoes ripening on the vine and a hydrangea that is somehow still…
Landscaping in Columbia Falls: A Race Against the Calendar
You set the tomato starts out the same weekend your neighbour did. Theirs set fruit in July. Yours set fruit in September, right as the nights start dropping into…
Landscaping in Havre: Wind, Dry Cold and the Hi-Line
The spruce you planted three years ago is brown on one side. The other three sides are green and growing. The southwest face looks like somebody held it over a…
Landscaping in Miles City: A Long Season on the Dry Plains
You have about 151 frost-free days and roughly twelve and a half inches of water a year, and that first number runs nearly a month longer than Bozeman's growing…
Landscaping in Sidney: The Lowest Ground in Montana
Sidney sits at 1,967 feet, the lowest elevation of any town in Montana. In most states that would be a trivia answer, but here it is the single most useful fact…
Landscaping in Glendive: Montana's Longest Growing Season
Glendive runs roughly 160 frost-free days a year, more than any other city in Montana. That is a full five weeks more summer than Bozeman gets, and about a week…
Landscaping in Lewistown: High Plains Between the Island Ranges
Lewistown is the wettest plains town in Montana. Not the wettest town, since Red Lodge, Bozeman and Whitefish all beat it, but at 17.2 inches of precipitation a…
Landscaping in Red Lodge: The Highest Town in Montana
Red Lodge is the highest town in Montana, 5,562 feet of thin air stacked under the Beartooth wall, and it is the wettest city in the state. 22.7 inches a year comes…
The Northwest: Flathead and Mission Valleys
You moved here for the water and the trees, and now you want a garden that looks like them.
The Western Valleys: Missoula and the Bitterroot
You planted a peach on the flattest, most open piece of ground you own. Flat and open means sun, you figured, and sun means fruit. It died in its second spring. Six…
The Southwest Valleys: Gallatin, Madison, Park and Beaverhead
You came for the mountains, the skiing, and that particular light, and you bought a lot in a new subdivision where every yard is bare and every neighbor is guessing…
Central Montana: The Helena Valley and the Upper Missouri
Your evergreens came through the winter brown on one side and green on the other, and it was the southwest side that burned. So you went hunting for a hardiness…
South-Central Montana: The Yellowstone Valley and the Beartooths
Drive southwest out of Billings in the last week of September and your tomatoes are still setting fruit behind you. The Beartooth wall stands over the town. Climb…
The Hi-Line: Milk River and the Northern Plains
You would expect the northern edge of Montana to be the hardest ground in the state to grow anything on. It isn't. Havre runs about 136 frost-free days, roughly 20…
Southeast Montana: Powder River and the Lower Yellowstone
Glendive runs about 160 frost-free days, the longest growing season in Montana. Not the Flathead. Not the Bitterroot. The far southeast: short-grass prairie, out…
The Best Shrubs for Montana: What Survives the Wind, the Cold, and the Lime
You planted a hedge. It was green on the rack, it was on sale, and the tag said "hardy to Zone 4," which was your zone, so you bought six. It went in, it looked…
The Best Perennials for Montana: Bloom Timing Matters as Much as Hardiness
You bought the plant rated two zones colder than you are. You put it where the tag told you, full sun, and you watered it all summer. It came back in spring, and…
Drought-Tolerant Plants for Montana: What Actually Survives When the Water Runs Short
Your water bill went up again. Or the city mailed the card that tells you which days you are allowed to run the sprinklers, and you taped it to the fridge and…
Vegetables That Actually Grow in Montana
The tomatoes went in during June and set a little green fruit by August. Then September came, the first hard frost landed, and nothing ripened. Maybe you planted…
Microclimates in Montana: Why Your Neighbour's Garden Doesn't Look Like Yours
You and your neighbor are leaning on the fence, looking at two tomato plants that came off the same rack at the same nursery and went into the ground the same…
Chinook Winds and What They Do to Your Plants
Early January. The snow is running off the street in a river, you're standing in the yard with no coat on, and you are thinking Montana isn't so bad after all.
Watering and Irrigation in Montana: How Much, How Often, and When to Stop
You ran the sprinkler every morning from June through August. By the middle of July the lawn had gone flat and gray anyway.
Snow Mold, Brown Patch and What Actually Kills a Montana Lawn
The snow pulls back in March and there it is: a matted, gray, crusted patch where the drift sat all winter. It looks dead. Something got in under that blanket and…
Spring Cleanup in Montana: The Order Matters
The first warm Saturday in March, the snow pulls back off the lawn, and you are out there with a rake before lunch.
Fall Lawn Care in Montana: Why September Decides Your Winter
Every April you walk out to the same lawn, gray at the base, thin along the driveway, with a straw-colored halo where the snow sat longest, and you blame the winter.
Winterising Your Sprinkler System in Montana
You turned the water off in November and felt responsible about it. Then the snow melted, you went out to start the system, and there was water arcing out of the…
What Montana's First Peoples Knew About These Plants
You can buy all five of these plants at a nursery this spring. Camas, serviceberry, chokecherry, wild bergamot, yarrow. They are garden plants now, listed in…
The Rise and Fall of the Montana Orchard
There is a story Montanans tell about the first apple tree in their state, and the story is wrong.
The Plants That Got Away in Montana
Look up whether a Norway maple is a noxious weed in Montana and page after page will tell you that it is, but they are wrong: not imprecise, not behind on the…
What a Retaining Wall Costs in Montana
The spring thaw is where a bad retaining wall quote shows up, and not in five years, because the wall bulges in that first thaw or it settles and cracks and then…
What a Sprinkler System Costs in Montana
The install quote is the number you'll compare, and it is also the smaller of the two numbers.
What Sod Costs in Montana (and When to Lay It)
You can buy sod in Montana any week the ground isn't frozen. You can only successfully lay it in about a six-week window.
What Converting to Xeriscape Costs in Montana
You write the check once, and then you never write it again.
Ready to hand it to someone who knows the valley?
We route Montana homeowners to vetted local landscapers — and we tell you what the work should actually cost before you call anyone.
How these plants got here.
How Plants Got to Montana: Orchards, Shelterbelts, and the Ones That Got Away
Almost nothing growing in Montana is from Montana.