All the Gardening Tasks You Need to Tackle in March
While it’s still snowing in some parts of the country, spring has begun to awaken for the rest of us. Tulips and irises are beginning to emerge from the ground, crocuses are blooming, and fruit trees are strewn with flower buds. If you’re itching to get outside and garden, we’re well into the season. It’s time to get organized and prepare, because by the time we talk again in April, we will be at it.
Start cleaning up your garden and lawn in March.
If your yard is a mess during the winter like mine, now is the time to get out and start cleaning up. I don’t want to get rid of the leaves – the insects are still dormant and will sleep until spring comes. But you can carefully rake them into beds and clear the lawn. Take your pruning shears and get rid of the dead wood that you see on the bushes around you. If you still haven’t touched the berry stems, this is your last chance to remove dead wood. Your blueberries are also ready for some good structural pruning. Make final pruning of large shrubs and small trees; we have reached the end of the point where this will be acceptable. For trees, remove branches that point inward or those that cross another branch. You want to create air flow. The same goes for your shrubs: If you’ve allowed your hydrangeas and lilacs to become woody, now is the time to lighten them by removing interior branches and those that point inward or cross other branches or are too close to the top. house.
Clean your water features such as ponds and bubblers. They may have algae or too much nitrogen from the leaves. Consider mosquito control to prevent the problem later this summer.
Empty the bird boxes; Birds don’t like used space. Clean all bird feeders thoroughly to avoid spreading disease to the local bird population.
Although I’m a proponent of eco-turfing (I didn’t have to run the lawnmower last year and was happy to give it away), it’s time to revitalize the green space, be it clover or grass. Open it up and consider ventilating it with an aerator you can rent or borrow. Then fertilize your lawn and seed it as soon as it’s warm enough. Grass seeds require a ground temperature of 50 degrees; For clover you need 40 degrees.
Separate the tubers and plan the bulbs.
Now that your irises and other tubers are about to produce small shoots, you can see exactly where they are and break them up if necessary. Tubers (ginger root is a tuber and looks just like iris and other tubers) are very difficult to kill. You can dig them up and break them, or take a shovel to them (stick it through the tuber to separate them). I have been known to take a serrated bread knife into the garden, stick it in the ground and saw the tubers. Even a small piece can be transplanted. You really will never have to buy more irises; you have the ability to distribute as much as you need.
With the exception of a few flowers such as ranunculus, it is too late to plant most fall/spring flowering bulbs such as tulips. But keep in mind: when you plant tulips in the fall, you have no idea what your garden will look like in the spring. This time of year I photograph most of my yard every week and try to pay attention to where I need more bulbs, what types of bulbs, what colors, etc. I may refer to them again in the fall when I order bulbs. and factory.
You can plant ranunculus, which is a fall bulb but a very forgiving early spring planting. Ranunkas, as gardeners call them, look like little peonies and come in fantastic colors. Their tiny spider-like corms (like bulbs) are easy to plant; they don’t need much depth, and since you’re planting them now, you can place them exactly where you need them to bloom.
Prepare the beds
There are many ways to prepare your beds for spring if they are not used in your conservatory. First remove the beds. Trim away any dead crops, but leave the roots in place for compost if you can. Clearing the top of your bed, be it leaves or twigs, will mean less food for slugs and snails as this is when you are most likely to catch them before they take over again. Get started on slug traps now. They don’t have to be elaborate: shallow bowls of beer work very well.
Get rid of weeds now, before they multiply. It will only get worse. Make sure you pull them all the way out, no matter how small they are. You don’t have to clean the entire bed; in fact, many people believe that it only brings the weed seeds to the surface. You can use a pitchfork to loosen the soil just enough to allow your plants to grow healthy roots without destroying structures already rooted in the soil, such as healthy mycorrhizae.
If you’ve never tested your soil, do it now. Talk to your local nursery, extension center or farm store about testing. You collect some soil, send it in, and they tell you what your soil needs. In fact, the most effective thing you can do in your garden is to have really healthy soil with as few weeds as possible.
Once it’s clean and ready, consider two additional tasks. First: mulch. Mulch is great for weed control, but it also protects plant roots by keeping them moist and protected from the elements. At this point you may also want to consider installing low tunnels so you can get an early start to the season.
Plant (or prune) roses.
Once your roses are established, it’s time to prune. If you haven’t, we’ve just started rose planting season and bare root roses from all the big rose houses like David Austin are now arriving in nurseries. Pay attention to the nursery’s instructions for planting bare-root roses: these artsy friends need fertilizer, good planting hole preparation, and proper planting to ensure they grow well.
Fertilize those bushes
Camellias are about to bloom, and other large shrubs such as azaleas and rhododendrons are not far behind. Heather fertilizers are good for them, and now is the time to fertilize them. You can purchase this acidic fertilizer at your local nursery.