Spring is here: trees are budding, and some plants are already in bloom. For garden lovers, now's the time to enjoy yourself — arranging space, planting, pruning, tending, sowing, taking cuttings. Here's what needs doing in March, area by area.
What to Do for Flowers?
- If winter protection is still covering your plants, you can remove it.
- Divide older perennials.
- Weed and clean flower beds; add fertilizer or compost.
- Cut back tired or faded flowers, keeping the foliage of spring bulbs.
- Plant the first annuals (nasturtium, poppy, sweet pea, marigold…), summer bulbs (lilies, gladioli, dahlias) and perennials.
What to Do for Ornamental Trees and Shrubs?
- Remove cold-weather protection.
- Prune rose bushes and add fertilizer at their base.
- Trim hedges (except spring-flowering shrubs) and summer-flowering shrubs (honeysuckle, wisteria, trumpet vine).
- Add fertilizer or well-rotted compost at the base of trees and shrubs.
- Plant bare-root roses and climbing plants; take cuttings from willows, poplars and boxwood.
What to Do for the Lawn?
- Treat it with a moss killer.
- Add a nitrogen-rich maintenance fertilizer, which boosts regrowth and deepens the color.
- Roll the lawn to make it thicker.
- Mow as soon as it reaches 6 cm in height.
- For a new lawn, prepare and fertilize the soil now.
What to Do in the Vegetable Garden?
- Add a base fertilizer and dig in any green manure.
- Sow: indoors (peppers, melons, tomatoes), under cover (carrots, celery, cabbage, cauliflower, zucchini, squash, lettuce, turnips, pumpkins, radishes, leeks), directly in the ground (carrots, chervil, cabbage, beets, spinach, fava beans, lettuce, onions, peas, turnips, parsley, leeks, radishes).
- Set potatoes to sprout, or plant those that sprouted in February.
- Plant garlic, white onions, artichokes, asparagus and tarragon.
What to Do in the Orchard?
- Protect flowering fruit trees with a winter fleece.
- Hoe around the base of trees and add fertilizer if you haven't already.
- Spray nettle manure before bud burst, then Bordeaux mixture as soon as buds break, and sulfur on trees affected by powdery mildew or scab.
- Prune peach and apricot trees; graft apple, pear and plum trees (cleft grafting).
