March is often the month when Spring really begins to show its face, so it’s the perfect month to get busy preparing for the season ahead by preparing seed beds, sowing seed, cutting back winter shrubs and generally tidying up around the garden.
Here’s our top gardening jobs to do in March.
Prune bush and climbing roses.
Pruning will help improve the health and lifespan of your roses, but different varieties require different pruning methods, so you may need to do some research before you wield the secateurs.
Plant shallots, onion sets and early potatoes
Onions and potatoes are such versatile vegetables – they feature in so many recipes, and growing your own means you’ll always have them to hand.
Plant summer flowering bulbs
Bulbs make a fine display planted in containers or borders, especially daffodils, snowdrops and tulips in spring. They are one of the easiest and most rewarding garden plants to grow.
Lift and divide overgrown clumps of perennials
This will ensure healthy, vigorous plants that will continue to perform year after year. It also offers the opportunity to multiply your plants.
Cut back dogwood (cornus) and willow (salix)
These are often grown for their colourful winter stems. A hard pruning now will encourage more vigorous growth to brighten the garden next winter.
Get weeding
Now’s the time to tackle those weeds early before they get out of control. Early spring is a good time to put in weed barriers as a preventative measure rather than waiting until there is a problem that requires suppression.
Protect young growth from slugs
Slugs are so abundant in gardens that some damage has to be tolerated. They cannot be eradicated so targeting control measures to protect particularly vulnerable plants, such as seedlings and soft young shoots on herbaceous plants will give the best results.
Feed ericaceous shrubs
Give your rhododendrons, camellias and azaleas a good feed with ericaceous fertiliser.
Start sowing
It’s time to grow, so get started by sowing vegetables seeds and half-hardy annual seeds.