Gardening Jobs in March

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Essential Tasks for the March Garden

March is a favourite month in the gardens for me, as the arrival of spring signals the beginning of a new growing season, with lots of new shoots bursting free of the surface. The weather can still be unpredictable with the possibility of a hard frost, but longer days and warming temperatures make it an ideal time to start preparing your garden for the months ahead. Here are a few essential gardening jobs to tackle in March:

The Flower Beds

Now is the time to prepare garden beds for the season. If you haven’t started weeding crack on now, cut down any dead vegetation on the herbaceous plants, or the ones that were left for winter interest, and mulch with well-rotted compost or a peat-free brand compost of your choice. Plant summer-flowering bulbs such as lilies, and gladioli. These will provide a fabulous display in the garden during the warmer months.

Now is a great time to plant Sweet Pea seeds! Any ordinary compost will do, they don't need a specific seed compost. Fill out a seed tray, or my preferred method is to use old bedding plant trays, recycling old stuff is always a good idea (thoroughly clean the trays first), do not firm the compost down as this will hamper the new emerging seedlings, with a dibber (or pencil) make a hole just 5mm deep, pop the seed in and loosely cover with compost, then deeply water in, this will be more than enough to firm the seeds in. Don't cover them with a propagator lid, just place on a warm windowsill, do not water again until you see the seedlings emerging! To ensure you have strong plants, take them outside as much as you can, even on cold, frost days, this will strengthen the plants, just be sure to return them inside at the end of the day.

Transplant evergreen shrubs now to your preferred spot, try to dig out as much of the rootball as possible, this will lessen any shock, will give it a better chance, and faster growth recovery.

New Plant Growing

I have mentioned seed-sowing in previous issues of my blog, but I’d like to mention plug plants. If like me you find yourself too busy to work with seeds, have you tried growing from plugs? These are tiny plants grown in a very small root ball, ready to be planted into larger trays or pots. I have used these very successfully for both perennials and annual bedding plants, it is a cheap, easy and effective way to grow for your garden, and I love it, there are a few companies that do them so make a cuppa and take a look online. Thompson and Morgan, and Suttons are good providers of plug plants and will often sell large packs of 72 or 144 plants for very little money, these are huge timesavers and I will certainly be planting bedding this way again!

Pruning

Now is the time to prune roses, shrub and bush (if you haven’t done them already), you should have pruned your climbers in the Autumn but if not don't worry, I have pruned climbers in March with great success, however, do not prune Rambling roses, these should always be done after flowering, tying in new growth, and pruning the old flowering stems back to a couple of buds. I like to cut roses fairly hard (25-38cm or 10-15 inches in old money), this encourages strong new growth, so remove dead or damaged branches and thin, small branches as these won’t hold a bloom but will drain energy and nutrients from the rose, you should aim for a nice, open wine glass shape, which will allow air and sunshine into the centre.

Prune your late summer-flowering shrubs, such as Fuchsias, Hardy Plumbago (both cut down to the crown), and Spiraea (by half usually but search online of you know the name as these can vary. Cut back ornamental grasses and the larger Pampas grasses, I use a hedge trimmer and take Pampas right down to 12-24 inches (30-60cm), fair warning, it’s a messy job and it will take longer to tidy it all up than it does to cut down.

One point of education I'd like to make to make is in this world of the internet, which is massively useful, especially with gardening apps lpike Plantnet etc, you would be doing yourself a huge favour by purchasing some of the old 'Expert' series of book by DG Hessayon (deceased), easily the worlds best-selling garden book author, with over 53 million books sold, there's a reason for this, they are full of information, but easy to read. While some of his views n the use of pesticides would not go down well today (you probably couldn't buy the stuff anyway) the information on the plants themselves is invaluable, you won't be disappointed!

Lawn Care

As the grass starts to grow, begin mowing with the mower on a high setting, cut fortnightly through March, ensure you have sharp blades as blunt blades will only damage the grass and leave it with ragged, unsightly, brown edges. You can scarify your lawn now, and if your lawn is patchy you could overseed the lawn, apply a good pre-seed fertiliser, this will help the new germinating seed. When it comes to watering in the new seed you ideally would be watering 3 times per day, or at least twice, and around 10mm of water per day for the first week to get it germinating, and then growing on with strength, holding a hosepipe with your thumb over the end for 2-3 minutes won't cut it i'm afraid.

Rake up any debris or moss and consider aerating compacted lawns to improve drainage. Apply a spring lawn feed to encourage robust growth. If you would like help with this we can advise you on a full lawn treatment programme, thanks for reading!

Paul Hoff Owner of Beautiful Gardens & Lawn Care Ltd.

Providing a High-Quality Lawn Treatment Service for 2025!

Office: 0800 0541165

Paul: 07773 846111