Gardening in March

March is the gateway to spring, it's getting lighter, warmer and we're feeling more positive. It's the growing season, a time to start sowing and planting as the soil begins to warm and the days get longer.

1. Vegetable Garden: Sowing & Planting

• Indoors: Start crops like tomatoes, chillies, peppers, and aubergines on a sunny windowsill.

• Outdoors: Once the soil is workable, sow hardy vegetables like broad beans, carrots, parsnips, spinach, and beetroot.

• Planting: March is the primary month to plant onions, shallots, asparagus, and potatoes.

2. Flower Garden: Blooms & Borders

• Sowing: Scatter hardy annuals such as cornflowers, poppies, and nigella directly into borders. Start sweet peas and dahlias under cover.

• Summer Bulbs: Plant lilies, gladioli, and crocosmia in pots or sunny borders.

• Maintenance: Lift and divide overgrown perennials like hostas or daylilies to rejuvenate them.

3. Trees, Shrubs & Fruit

• Last Chance for Bare-Roots: Plant bare-root fruit trees, hedging, and roses before they break dormancy.

• Pruning: Finish pruning roses, buddleja, and late-flowering clematis.

• Feeding: Apply fertiliser to shrubs and hedges to support new spring growth. 

  
  

4. General Maintenance

• Lawn Care: Give the lawn its first light mow on a dry day with the blades set high.

• Pest Control: Keep an eye out for slugs and snails

  which emerge as the weather warms to feast on tender new shoots.

• Soil Prep: Mulch beds with compost or well-rotted manure to suppress weeds and retain moisture. 

Enjoy!!

Source: BBC Gardeners World and Thompson and Morgan.