Master gardener John Hethrington doesn't let a little thing like winter prevent him from working on his 20 different gardens. His advice for all gardeners is this: there's always work to be done.
Here is his list of chores for March to get things started for outdoor garden season:
- Start tuberous begonias and caladiums corms in pots.
- Plant brassicas (the cabbage family) seeds and hardy annuals for late May planting outdoors.
- Start tomatoes, lettuce and other fast growers from seed in late March to early April.
- Make a list of spring chores in the order they should be done, if you haven’t already done so.
- Order summer flowering bulbs. Try www.botanus.com.
- Order/buy seeds for summer planting now!
- Check, repair and sharpen your gardening tools.
- Apply combination dormant oil spray to fruit trees and pest-prone shrubs when the above-freezing weather permits.
- Bring spring indoors. Start forcing branches of spring-flowering shrubs like Forsythia.
- If you can find them, buy narcissus bulbs and grow them in gravel with water
- Prune summer-flowering shrubs and vines.
- When the snow is gone from your garden beds and they are still wet, but before the new leaves emerge,apply triple-19 agricultural fertilizer liberally.
- Plan to plant a few bird-attracting, native berry plants and shrubs, plus pollinator perennials for bees and butterflies.
- When the snow goes, loosen up and dig in packed-down winter mulch and press any perennials that have heaved back into place.
