Your Monthly Gardening Guide ~ 5 Jobs for March.
If you’re new to the monthly gardening guide, a very warm welcome.
Each month, avid gardener, Jenny from @thelaundrygarden shares her top 5 gardening tips for the month.
If you missed the previous month’s blog, don’t worry, you can read them by clicking on the links below.
January ~ 5 Gardening jobs for January
February ~ 5 Gardening jobs for February
Jenny has the most incredible garden in the Vale of Clwyd in North East Wales.
Jenny and her husband, Tom have just under 3 acres of garden (including a 1 acre walled garden) that they began transforming 10 years ago.
They’ve also recently opened a luxury retreat specifically for adults, in a very romantic and truly beautiful rural location.
Whilst there, you can enjoy stunning views of the Clwydian range, notably an area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB).
So, whilst you’re daydreaming of child-free weekends away in her luxury retreat (that’s me included!), I think I should hand you over to Jenny to talk gardening! Over to you Jenny…
Where winter becomes spring, the ground starts to warm up and the dawn chorus begins as the birds start to breed! There couldn’t be a better time to be outside enjoying everything nature has to offer!
This year the spring equinox is on 20th March, and I can always rely on my stunning white Magnolia ‘Stellata’ to be in full flower by then.
Closely followed by the cherry blossom. This year, however, might be slightly delayed by the cold snap in early February!
~ Here are my 5 garden jobs, we can be getting on with throughout March ~
~ Cut back grasses and winter stems and any other standing stems ~
Usually by the end of February, early March, the growth from deciduous grasses have turned pale brown and are ready to be cut to the ground.
You can use sheers or secateurs to do this, you might find on some grasses that some new growth has started to appear, try and avoid cutting these as they are this year’s growth!
If you have Pennisetum, leave trimming this until mid-April as it is a warm season grass that regrows later.
If you have evergreen grass such as Stipa just pull out any dead material leaving the more attractive green growth. Please do make sure you’re wearing gloves, or your hands will be shredded!
If you have some colourful stemmed Cornus or Willow, now is a good time to cut them back to the previous year’s stubs.
Before deciding to cut back winter stems, be sure they are established or have been in the ground for about 3 years before applying this method.
You can choose to do this every other year by cutting out the previous year’s growth or taking a third out every year.
If you haven’t already done so you can now cut back any stems from perennials avoiding any new growth that’s coming from their base, if you have any plants such as Penstemon or Verbena that already have shoots just cut back to just above a healthy-looking shoot to make them look tidier.
For more information about cutting back ornamental grasses click here.
~ Rejuvenate overgrown trees and shrubs ~
This is a job that most established gardens need every few years!
Admittedly, you have to be brave and know that by doing this means possibly sacrificing flowers on some plants for at least one season.
It’s also worth doing now to rejuvenate your trees, shrubs and garden.
Before setting about such a task always make sure you have the appropriate tools for the job that are sharp and clean.
The type of things you can do are, pruning lower branches from trees to lift the canopy that will bring more light to the ground below, gain control of overgrown hedges and renovate overgrown shrubs. For more details on how to do this and what plants respond well click here.
Once all pruning has been done make sure you feed and mulch. For more information on where to buy mulch head to the February blog here.
And on that note…
~ Refresh pot grown shrubs ~
Now is the ideal time to check, refresh and feed all your outside pots that have any shrubs or trees in.
The simplest way to do this is to take off the top 3-4 inches of soil and replace it with fresh compost that has the right nutrients for the plant.
Remember if you have acidic loving plants like Azaleas or camelias use an ericaceous compost instead.
~ Apply general purpose fertiliser to hungry plants such as Roses and Clematis ~
There’s still time to finish off any rose pruning followed by giving them a couple of shovels full of mulch or well-rotted horse manure at their base, this helps to nourish the soil, acts like a weed suppressant and aids moisture retention.
We also start our rose feeding programme now by sprinkling a handful of Rose granular feed to the base of all our roses making sure it doesn’t touch the stems or new growth.
Because roses are hungry plants, by feeding them now gives them a better chance of remaining healthy throughout the growing season.
Other flowering plants that might benefit from a granular feed are clematis and honeysuckle.
~ Eradicate slugs! ~
As soon as the soil warms up and remains at 5C slugs wake up, and love feasting on new shoots of some perennials like dahlias, lupins, hostas and delphiniums!
This can be avoided now by using a few different methods.
My favourite methods are wool pellets and slug nematodes, all are safe and won’t affect wildlife and pets.
A thrift method is crushed eggshells and woodchip as slugs dislike rougher surfaces!
It’s important to know that Thrushes ground beetles and hedgehogs, eat slugs and using slug pellets is not the best option if you want to encourage these important predators into your garden.
See you next month, happy gardening!
~ This month’s Instagram account to follow ~
~ This month’s book recommendation ~
The Complete Gardener, Monty Don (released on 4 March)
A new edition of Monty’s hugely popular “The Complete Gardener” updated to reflect how he gardens today
Again, I’d like to say a huge thank you to Jenny for sharing these top gardening tips. Getting in the garden is feeling more and more appealing as the days lengthen and slowly warm up.
If you’re reading this as a beginner gardener you may find this blog (also written by the lovely, Jenny) really helpful ~ 5 quick gardening tip for beginners.
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This is wonderful. Private message me your email … I’ll show you my “ monthly” gardening video 🥶. I sent it to Jenny at the Laundry Garden