March Jobs

General;

  • Cut back deciduous grasses to the ground. Comb through evergreen grasses with your fingers or a rake to remove any dead growth.

  • Plant gladioli corms, every 2 weeks, to give a succession of colourful flowers from high summer into autumn. They like a sunny spot nd good drainage. Plant at least 10cm deep to give you an all important straight stem, and 10cm apart.

  • Cut back Group 3 clematis, those that flower after June and into the autumn. Cut back to the lowest healthy bud. New shoots will need tying in to their supports every week until the end of May.

  • Pot up dry dahlia tubes to start them into growth.

  • Sprinkle a granular rose fertiliser around the base of rose bushes to encourage healthy growth and lots of blooms this summer. Repeat in June, this will last the whole growing season.


Fruit & Vegetables;

  • Harvest forced rhubarb, then replace the cover.

  • Start sowing tender vegetables such as sweet peppers, aubergines and courgettes.

  • Grow early potatoes in a potato bag, or large container, with equal quantities of multi purpose and loam based compost. Place a 20cm layer in the container and firm gently. Place four tubers on the surface and cover with 10cm of compost mix. Water well. Add more copouts the new shoots grow.

  • Plant onion sets into weed free soil in a sunny spot. Draw out a shallow drill and gently place the bulb into the soil and push more soil around the bulb to leave the tip showing. Replant if birds peck the bulbs out of place. Keep well watered.

  • Protect early flowering fruit trees such as apricots, nectarines and peaches from frost, which can prevent the blossom from developing into fruit.


Wildlife;

  • Top up bird feeders with calorie-rich food to help birds prepare for breeding.

  • Keep pond work to a minimum to encourage amphibians to return and spawn on warm days.

  • Leave out wood, such as old stumps, and build piles of old branches and logs for stag beetles and other invertebrates. Rotting wood provides the environment they need to lay their eggs. Plant clematis to cover them if you wish.

  • Build a bug box from offcuts of timber, inserted with lengths of old bamboo canes, and attach it to a fence, wall, tree or shed. It will make a home for solitary bees, ladybirds, lacewings, earwigs and spiders. Place it south facing and above chest height.

  • Buy a few pots of grape hyacinths (muscari) which will provide nectar for peacock, red admiral and brimstone butterflies as they emerge from hibernation.

Gwennan Rees