Gardening tips: March 2015

It’s spring! It may not feel like it with the biting cold winds and the dark evenings and the garden looking sometimes quite drab and forlorn – but looking underneath the pools of leaves and brushing aside the crispy brown foliage you will spot some surprising and welcome signs of spring.

I’ve been enjoying watching tulips and Paeonies emerge, and admiring the Hellebores and Camellias now packed with flowers! Snowdrops too are in full flower and look amazing as you turn into Sheringham Park, where they’re sweeping the verges and carpeting the woodland.

If you are a snowdrop fan it might be worth checking out the mass of snowdrops at Chestnut Farm at West Beckham, they have an amazing array and often pop up in the Royal Horticultural Society magazine – we are so lucky to have such a garden locally on our doorstep!

I love this time of year as people rediscover their gardens and the joy of gardening, so much nicer when the sun is warming your back! As spring unveils all its colour it really feels worthwhile spending some time outside, planting up favourite spring flowers.

By the end of the month we will really notice the evenings drawing out too as the clocks go forward, leaving us with much more time to venture into the garden.

Happy Gardening!

Jobs for March:

  • Cut out dead wood in shrubs – easier to spot now when the branches are popping all over with buds and they have lost their leaves.
  • Cut back grasses.
  • Lift and divide overgrown perennials.
  • Repair lawns, weed and feed, rake the moss and debris out and aerate with a garden fork.
  • Mulch roses with compost – a nice thick layer at the base.
  • Top up pots with compost.
  • Check that the writing on your plant labels hasn’t worn off.
  • Clean the greenhouse with soapy water.
  • Prune Buddleia, hardy Fuchsias, Dogwoods (very hard nearly back to ground level) and Hydrangeas.
  • Sow more seeds.
  • Keep your flowerbeds free from leaves and keep turning the soil to expose pests.
  • Weed, weed, weed!