I shift into fulltime spring style once the calendar rolls over to March 1. March can bring heavy, wet snow tempered by warm, sunny days. It’s a great time to get busy in the garden and savor the smell of damp dirt and the colours of nature’s awakening.
Jocelyn H. Chilvers
Enjoy the very first of those spring-flowering bulbs. Be on the lookout for snowdrops, crocuses, chionodoxa (shown here), dwarf irises and more!
Jocelyn H. Chilvers
Force flowers from trees and shrubs into an early bloom. It’s so hard to wait for those first flowers of spring to blossom. Bring a few branches indoors and deceive them to flowering early. Try out crabapple or quince, hawthorn, forsythia, serviceberry or cherry. Here’s how to induce flowers:
• Select branches which are 2 to 3 feet long and have plenty of fat flower buds. (Flower buds are bigger and rounder than leaf buds)
• Make a 1- to 2-inch-long vertical slit at the cut end of each branch (to help with water intake) and plunge the branches into a deep bucket of water.
• Set the bucket at a cool room (60 to 65 degrees Fahrenheit) before the buds start to show colour. This normally takes.
• Mist the branches with water sometimes if the humidity is low.
• once the buds show color, you can arrange them for display in a generally heated area of the house.
The blossoms should completely open in a day or 2. To prolong the bloom time, keep the arrangement in bright, indirect light during the day and transfer into a cooler location at night. Make a new cuts on the end of each branch every couple of days to assist water absorption.
Jocelyn H. Chilvers
Start seeds inside. Warm-season veggies — like tomatoes, peppers and eggplant — can be started from seed this season and transplanted to the garden once spring is firmly under way. Prioritize seeding depending on the number of times your preferred vegetables will want to completely grow.
You do not want to start too early, though, or your own seedlings will acquire root-bound and leggy, requiring repotting. They key is to obtain the typical last frost date to your area and start your seeds indoors six to eight weeks prior to that date. For example, the final frost date for Salt Lake City, Utah, is April 22. Six weeks prior to this is March 11.
Wait a couple of weeks following the last frost to plant your seedlings outdoors. This will give the soil a bit more time to heat up. You can accelerate this process by covering bare garden soil with black plastic or marijuana fabric to absorb and hold heat. Maintain floating row covers handy to blanket your brand new transplants when weather threatens.
Jean Marsh Design
While planning your vegetable garden, attempt to integrate companion plants for improved plant health. Good partners for tomato plants include members of the onion family, carrots, parsley, cucumbers, nasturtiums and marigolds.
Le jardinet
Attract birds by setting up nesting boxes on your landscape. Early to mid March is the best time to have them established.
Start by researching the box specifications for the type of birds you want to attract. The dimensions of this box, dimensions and location of this gap, height above ground for placement etc. are species specific. The National Wildlife Federation has some great info that will help you be successful in creating a nesting box and observing the birds which use it.
Jocelyn H. Chilvers
Cut back perennial ornamental grasses. Any herbacious plants left in the garden to give winter texture and colour can be removed now. Grasses particularly should be trimmed to the ground soon to avoid cutting off the tips of newly emerging foliage; if they’re cut on the disfigurement will continue all season. I like to use long-bladed shears like these, but you might like a string trimmer or even a chainsaw.
Matt Kilburn
Shred your cuttings and debris and add them to your compost now, or stockpile everything to mix in later in the year. Maintain mulch around plants, especially roses, to impede early growth and protect them from freezing.
See how to start a compost pile
Jocelyn H. Chilvers
Control weeds. March is a great time to acquire a jump-start on weed control. Small, newly emerging plants are easier to remove, and if you stay along with the weeds through June, the remainder of the season will probably be more manageable. Attack bindweed and other perennials like Canada thistle, mallow, chicory, creeping bellflower, dandelion and grasses. Don’t just pull on the tops, however; use a bladed tool like the Japanese hori hori knife, shown here, to get deep into the dirt and break the roots off.
Tackle Weeds the Pure Approach
Tell us : Is your garden ready for spring?