To Do in March

• Divide snowdrops.

• Plant herbaceous perennials and hardy cyclamen.

• Pollinate peach and apricot trees.

• Sow onions, parsnips and broad beans.

• Take dahlia cuttings.

• There is still time to spray fruit trees with Winter wash.

• If you are planting bare root trees and hedging in March ensure firstly that they have not started to shoot, and secondly that the ground is well prepared and damp. There is nothing worse at this time of the year than their roots drying out.

• Sow seeds of brussels sprouts in a frame or a cold greenhouse.

• During the middle to late March hardy annuals of all kinds should be sown where they are to flower.

• Prune large flowering clematis.

• Feed lawns.

• Feed raspberries, loganberries, blackberries and strawberries.

• Prepare celery trenches.

• Sow Summer and Autumn cabbage.

• Feed pot grown hydrangeas.

• Sow tomatoes, a minimum temp. of 16°C is essential for good germination.

• Broad beans and peas started in pots or boxes indoors should now be hardened off for planting out in a week or two.

• Seeds of pansies, violas and polyanthus many be sown now under glass.

• After you have finished all the rose pruning, spray immediately with Rose Clear. Continue to spray from the middle of March throughout the Summer.

• Mulch around your fruit bushes and trees with farmyard manure if you haven’t done so already.

• Plant gladiolus corms.

• Sow leeks and carrots.

• Feed Winter lettuce.

• Feed annuals in pots.

• Divide ferns.

• Sow sweet peas.

• Prune early flowering shrubs which have finished flowering.eg. Hamamelis

• Don’t forget to plant more Potatoes still giving preference to the early varieties.

• Where rhubarb is being forced, take the covers off now because if they are left on too long the plant becomes weak.

• Daffodils can be lifted and separated as they go out of flower, and moved while green.

• Check that ties on young trees have room for expansion when the surge of Spring and Summer growth thickens the stem.

• Prune hydrangeas that have overgrown their space. To reduce the size of the bush, simply cut out about one fifth of the branches down as low as possible.

• Young trees and shrubs in poor soil can have an application of tree and shrub fertilizer or general fertilizer this month to boost growth.

• Weeds among water marginal plants should be removed while the lack of foliage on the water plants allows good access.

• Wooden furniture can now be taken out of storage, cleaned and treated with preservative if necessary.