March gardening tips

Early March

Lift and divide herbaceous plants.

Plant alpine/herbaceous plants.

Lightly mow over the lawn.

Prepare sites for new lawns.

Prune rose bushes soon if not already done. Plant onion, garlic and shallot sets.

Start Begonia and Gloxinia tubers into growth indoors.

Buy seedlings or baby bedding plants to grow on at home.

Mid March

Support all tall growing herbaceous plants from early in the season. Try growing some ornamental vegetables in the flower garden, e.g. red leafed lettuce and runner beans. Prune Blueberries. Sow hardy annual flowers like Eschscholzia, Godetia, Clary, Mignonette etc. direct in the garden borders.

Treat moss, scarify and aerate lawns as well as feeding the grass, you can now get moss killers that digest dead moss, so no raking or use traditional Lawn Sand. Prune late summer flowering shrubs, like Buddleia and Caryopteris, as well as Hydrangea paniculate varieties and Hydrangea arborescensc Annabelle. Prune down hard shrubs with coloured stems like Cornus, as well as hardy Fuchsias.

Trim over winter flowering heathers cutting to the base of the flower clusters. Buy and plant pots of herbs. Sow seeds of hardy herbs in the garden, like parsley. Plant seed potatoes – but beware of frost once the shoots emerge from the soil. Vegetable seeds to sow now include: broad beans, lettuce, leeks, parsnips, peas, radish, salad onions, spinach, Swiss chard and spinach beet.

Sow summer bedding under glass: dahlias, impatiens, petunias, phlox drummondii, salvias, asters, tagetes, mesembryanthemums, alyssum, nicotiana, marigolds and zinnias. Plant lilies outdoors in borders and tubs. Lay out growing bags in the greenhouse to warm up the compost before planting. Sow fruit and vegetable plants for growing on in a heated greenhouse, e.g. tomatoes, aubergines, peppers, cucumbers, etc. or you could decide to buy plants later.

Late March

Plant less robust hardy evergreen shrubs e.g. Hebe and Ceanothus.

Lay turf or sow lawn seed.Start feeding pond fish more frequently as the water temperature rises.

Vegetables to sow now include: Brussels sprouts, red cabbage, summer cabbage and summer cauliflower. Dwarf French beans can be sown under cloches.

Watch out for the buildup of pests and diseases. Hine weevils will be starting to lay eggs in the compost of pots and containers now. An organic answer is a half inch deep layer of horticultural grit over the compost surface to deter them. It is still a bit too early to use predatory nematodes to control the grubs. Marginal plants in pond can be divided if overcrowded but watch out for frog spawn.

Remember

You can’t race the seasons and seeds do not have to be sown exactly when the packet tells you. My advice, with outdoor sowings is watch the weather, not the calendar, as seed sown later when conditions are right usually catches up and surpasses crops put in earlier that had to suffer during bad weather.