While it is still dumping snow in parts of the country, spring has started to awaken for the rest of us. Tulips and irises are starting to poke out of the ground, crocuses are blooming, and fruit trees are loaded with flower buds. If you’ve been itching to get out and get gardening, we’re on the cusp of the season. This is the time to get organized and get ready, because by the time we talk again in April, we will be in it.
Start garden and lawn cleanup in March
If your yard looks a mess during winter, like mine does, now is the time to get out there and start cleaning up. You don’t want to get rid of the leaves—there are still insects slumbering, and they will be until spring hits. But you can gently rake them into beds and clear your lawn. Grab your pruners and get rid of the deadwood you see around you on shrubs. If you didn’t hit your berry canes before now, this is your last chance to clear away the deadwood. Your blueberries are ready to get a good structural pruning, too. Give your large shrubs and small trees a final pruning; we’re at the tail end of when it’s acceptable to do so. For trees, remove branches aimed inward, or those that cross another branch. You want to create airflow. The same is true for your shrubs: If you’ve allowed your hydrangeas and lilacs to become woody, now is a good time to lighten them up by removing interior branches and those that aim inward or cross other branches, or are too close to the house.
Clean up your water features like ponds and bubblers. They might have algae or too much nitrogen from leaves in them. Consider mosquito control to prevent a problem later this summer.
Empty your bird boxes; birds don’t like a used space. Do a deep clean of all your bird feeders, so you’re not spreading disease amongst the local bird population.
While I am an ecolawn convert (I did not have to run my lawnmower once last year, and happily gave it away), it’s time to revive the green space, whether it’s clover or grass. Uncover it, and consider aerating it with an aerator, which you can rent or borrow. Then fertilize the lawn, and as soon as it’s warm enough, overseed it. For grass seed, you need 50 degree ground temps; for clovers, you need 40 degrees.
Divide tubers and plan your bulbs
Now that your irises and other tubers should be sending up small shoots, you can see precisely where they are and, if necessary, break them up. Tubers (ginger root is a tuber, and it looks exactly like iris tubers and others) are very hard to kill. You can dig them up and break them apart, or take a spade to them (shove it through the tuber to divide it). I have been known to take a serrated bread knife into the garden, shove it into the dirt and saw tubers apart. Even a small piece can be replanted. You should really never need to buy more irises; you have the ability to propagate as many as you need.
With the exception of a few flowers like ranunculus, it’s too late to plant most fall-planting/spring-flowering bulbs, like tulips. But consider that when you plant tulips in fall, you have no idea what your garden looks like in Spring. During this time of year, I take pictures every week of most of my yard, and try to pay attention to where I need more bulbs, which kinds of bulbs, what colors, etc. I can reference them again in fall when I order bulbs and plant.
You can plant ranunculus, which is a fall bulb, but very forgiving on early spring planting. Ranuncs, as they’re referred to by gardeners, are like small peonies and come in fantastic colors. Their tiny spider-like corms (like bulbs) are easy to plant; they don’t need a lot of depth and since you’re planting them now, you can put them exactly where you need them to bloom.
Prep the garden beds
There are lots of ways we can get garden beds ready for spring if they’re not in use with your winter garden. First, clean up the beds. Chop all your dead crops down, but leave the roots in place to compost if you can. Cleaning up the top of beds, whether that’s leaves or branches, will mean less food for slugs and snails, since this is when you’re most likely to catch them before they repopulate. Go ham on slug traps right now. They don’t need to be complicated—shallow dishes of beer work really well.
Get rid of the weeds, too, now, before they multiply. It will only get worse from here on out. Make sure you’re pulling them out entirely, no matter how small they are. You don’t have to till up your entire bed; in fact, many people believe doing so only brings weed seeds to the surface. You can use a broadfork to break up the soil just enough to allow your plants to grow healthy roots, without destroying the structures that have been established in the soil already, like healthy mycorrhizae.
If you’ve never tested your soil, do it now. Talk to your local nursery, extension office, or farm store about testing. You collect a little dirt, send it off, and they’ll let you know what your soil needs. Realistically, the most effective thing you can do in your garden is have really healthy soil with as few weeds as possible.
Once it’s clean and ready, consider two additional tasks. First: mulch. Mulch is great for stopping weeds, but it also protects plant roots to keep them moist and insulted from the weather. You can also consider getting low tunnels up at this point so you can get an early start on the season.
Plant (or prune) roses
If you have established roses, it’s pruning time. If you don’t, we’ve just started rose-planting season, and bareroot roses from all the big rose houses like David Austin are hitting nurseries now. Pay attention to the nursery instructions for planting bareroot roses: These frilly friends need fertilizer, good planting hole prep, and to be planted correctly in order to thrive.
Fertilize these shrubs
Camellias are about to bloom, and other large shrubs like azaleas and rhododendrons aren’t far behind. They benefit from ericaceous fertilizer, and now’s the time to dress them with it. You can pick up this acidic fertilizer at the local nursery.
