March in the Garden
Engagement in gardening has shown to have both immediate and long-term effects on mental health outcomes. Just gardening for several hours provides instantaneous reductions in depression and anxiety symptoms, while gardening daily is associated with reduced stress and increased life satisfaction. Gardening helps release serotonin levels – the happy hormones that promote positive feelings. Being outside in direct contact with the sun also does wonders for your mood and, thus, is a stress reliever.
The sense of accomplishment is also an immense reward and tangibly satisfying. Just cutting the grass and tidying the edges can be most satisfying.
And now as the weather warms there is a lot to keep you busy in the garden as our gardening tips for March show below. But once you’ve finished all your labours why not treat yourself to a visit to our little nurseries and Potting Shed Tearooms to help inspire you. The plant area is filling up daily with everything from herbs and spring bulbs to large shrubs and new season perennials.
Summer Flowering Bulbs
March and April is a good time to plant summer bulbs such as Dahlia and Lilies. If you have the right growing conditions, Dahlias are a great showy garden plant.
If you buy Dahlias as tubers, you need to plant about 6 weeks before the last expected frosts. This is because Dahlias are not frost hardy and frost will damage the new top growth.
It takes about 6 weeks for the new growth to come through, which is the reason for the time delay. If you get caught out, cloche them. If your growing conditions are not ideal, such as colder and wetter, it is better to start Dahlias in containers under glass and bring out to harden off in May.
Lilies look fantastic in summer borders. Many Lilies are tall, often scented and make good patio plants. March is the right time to get the bulbs going in pots, which is much cheaper than buying as more mature plants later in the year. Pick a good-sized pot and fill with suitable compost, plant 3 bulbs per pot, and cover with more compost.
Spring Lawn Care
The winter always leaves lawns looking worn and scruffy, especially where they are prone to moss. Keep an eye on the weather but you can probably give your grass its first light cut with the lawn mower from mid-march. But be wary of hard frosts. Once you’ve done it, and there’s a spell of warm (ish) weather to encourage the grass to grow, then it’s the ideal time to feed and weed it.
If winter has left bare patches in your lawn, make sure you use lawn seed to repair them. The perfect time to apply grass seed for immediate growth is between March and April.
Quickly smarten up the appearance of your lawn by trimming the edges if you didn’t do this over the winter.
If the wet weather has caused moss problems, consider your moss control plan. Order a fertiliser that can kill weeds and moss and prepare to scarify next month.
March is also one of the best times of the year for laying a new lawn. Turf can be laid in preparation for an established lawn by spring. You can sow lawn seed in late March or early April as long as you water it regularly. Turf is delivered daily to the nurseries from March/April. The turf is high quality multi-purpose lawn turf and ideal for any garden.
Feed Roses
Your roses will enjoy a feed with granular fertiliser to encourage good growth through the coming weeks, especially if they’ve just been pruned. Early-mid March for pruning most roses.
In the Vegetable Garden
Prepare for the Planting
If you’re unsure what type of soil you have, you can buy a simple soil testing kit. This will enable you to choose the right plants for your vegetable garden.
Start fertilising your beds. To do so, add a 5-7cm or more layer of compost (or well-rotted manure) into the beds.
Add supports. If any of your plants will need supports this year, now is a good time to put them in. This is so that any plants can grow up around/through them.
Weed any vegetable beds now to prepare for the growing season.
Top up any raised beds with good quality topsoil and compost.
Protect any spring shoot from slugs – sheep’s wool is a great organic way of doing this. We sell it in a small roll in the nurseries
This month you can either carry on Chitting potatoes, and or plant early Potatoes. Potatoes are an easy and rewarding crop to grow. Potatoes can take up a lot of space in the veg plot so fortunately Potatoes are a vegetable ideally suited to growing in containers.
If you have a greenhouse, you can even start potatoes off in containers in the greenhouse and move out once all risk of frost has passed. Frost will damage the new potato shoots, called haulms. The time growing in the greenhouse will get the plants off to a good start.
Pruning
There is so much cutting back, pruning and tidying this time year to do you can almost always find something to do over the course March. Many summer or late-summer flowering deciduous shrubs can be pruned between January and March. Examples include Buddleja davidii, Caryopteris clandonensis, Ceratostigma, Hydrangea paniculata, Leycesteria, Lavatera, Perovskia, hardy fuchsia, and deciduous Ceanothus species.
What month is spring pruning?
Take out half the old stems that remain from pruning and prune back the other stems, depending on flowering time, as follows: In spring for shrubs with flowers that bloom July – February. After flowering for shrubs with flowers that bloom April – July.
Feeding
As soon as spring arrives, plants start into vigorous growth and that needs to be supported by moisture from the soil, but also from plenty of nutrition. So, plant feeding is really crucial in the spring.
If you require any further help or advice please don’t hesitate to contact us here at the nurseries.
Enjoy! 🌱