Spring is here and our traditional spring flowers are part of the welcome party – hyacinths with their strong scent and cheery daffodils marking the new season. Of course, now that the weather is warming up and the clocks go forward at the end of the month giving us longer daylight hours, we’ll have more time to spend in the garden!
There will be lots to see, brilliant blue grape hyacinths and tulips of all shapes, sizes and colours. Woods are now carpeted with snowdrops, and later on in the season there will be a haze of delicate bluebells.
I love this time of month for the sense of freshness it brings to the garden and nature. Winter has wiped the slate clear so that now we can start again – I notice particularly with roses, their fresh leaves are without blemish and there isn’t any straggly, dying back foliage like you get later on in the year with daylilies and daffodils.
This month we have also got Easter to look forward to – and all the chocolate eggs it brings with it! The aisles of chocolate eggs are Heaven for me – especially as they usually sit next to aisles of gardening paraphernalia! You can pick up things like twine and packets of seeds quite cheaply now for the next few weeks.
There really isn’t a better time of year to get out there and start gardening!
Have a lovely Easter,
Happy Gardening!
Jobs for March:
- Cut back ornamental grasses
If you haven’t already, cut back dead foliage of Crocosmias and Sedums etc so that new emerging plants have space to grow - Remove slugs and snails
- Feed your bulbs as they begin to flower – compost will do but you can get bulb feed which releases the nutrients over 3 months (so not as long as the traditional slow release granules you might use on your shrubs which usually last for 6 months)
- Mulch your beds to lock moisture in and keep the weeds down
- Flowers such as snowdrops that like planting when they are in leaf can be divided and planted
- Topdress (adding a layer of compost to your pots and containers) – and give them a check over, do they look happy? Would they like to be moved into more sunshine, or somewhere more sheltered from the wind?
- Trim back late summer flowering Clematis to a nice pair of big buds
- Improve your soil by digging in some vermiculite/compost/well rotted manure
- Weed, weed, weed!