The new gardening season gets going in March. Perennials that bloom in fall can be divided and transplanted on frost-free days. Tomatoes and physalis are grown in the windowsill and herbs receive a vigorous pruning. There is time to plant garlic until mid-March so that you can harvest it in late summer.
What are the most important gardening tasks in March?
The following garden work should be done in March: sowing early lettuce, beans, salsify, parsnips, carrots, onions, spinach, herbs; Harvesting wild herbs and winter vegetables; Planting fruit trees, berry bushes, shrubs, hedges, roses and perennials; Multiply by division and translocation; Cutting fruit trees, roses; Prepare beds, pull weeds, grow vegetable plants, pre-germinate potatoes.
Summary
The birds are singing, the first spring flowers are blooming and the sun is shining again with warming power. However, you should remain careful because the earth is often still cold and wet in winter. In addition, a frosty interlude can freeze all the tentative greenery overnight.
- Sowing: early salads, broad or broad beans, salsify, parsnips, carrots, onions, spinach, parsley, dill, caraway
- Harvesting: Wild herbs such as dandelions, daisies, celandine and groundweed, chives, winter purslane, parsnips, leeks, lamb's lettuce, winter spinach
- Plants: all fruit trees and berry bushes, flowering and wild bushes, hedges, roses, perennials
- Propagate: Perennials can be divided, bulb flowers can be moved and bulbs can be removed in the process
- Cutting: Fruit trees, roses, buddleia, garden hibiscus, lavender, blue rue, summer heather, summer-flowering clematis, driving flowers, repotting overwintered balcony and potted plants
- Other gardening tasks: Preparing and raking beds smooth, weeding, growing vegetable plants, pre-germinating potatoes, sprouting rhubarb, hilling up roses
Sowing in March
In regions with a mild climate, you can order the first garden beds and planters when the weather is favorable. However, if you live in an area with a harsh climate, it's better to wait a little longer: seeds and young roots rot very quickly in wet, cold soil.
- Sowing outdoors: Broad or broad beans, broad beans, salsify, split peas, parsnips, leeks, carrots, onions, spinach, radishes, robust herbs such as parsley, root parsley and caraway, garlic
- Sowing in the greenhouse: Lettuce (especially cut and picked lettuce), kohlrabi, radishes, spring radishes, May turnips, leeks, cauliflower, pointed cabbage, white cabbage, savoy cabbage
- Sowing in the windowsill: Celery and stalks, peppers, eggplants, muskmelons, tomatoes, physalis, artichokes, broccoli and Romanesco, fennel, basil, marjoram, lavender, lemon balm, Sage
Harvests in March
In March the first green chives and winter hedge onions sprout. There are also wild herbs such as dandelions, groundweed, daisies and celandine. Sometimes the last lamb's lettuce sown in autumn as well as parsnips and leeks can be harvested from the bed, while the greenhouse may already produce the first spinach and radishes. You can also grow cress and chervil as well as sprouts on the windowsill, which also provide fresh vitamins and some variety.
Plants that bloom in March
In March, early bloomers and other signs of spring compete with each other with their blossoms. Classic early bloomers such as crocus (Crocus), daffodil (Narcissus pseudonarcissus) or Christmas rose (Helleborus niger) can be admired in the beds, as can the pansy (Viola x wittrockiana), which is available in countless colors, and pretty, early-flowering shrubs such as the spring spirea (Spiraea thunbergii).
- Flowers and perennials:Christmas rose, gold star, pasqueflower, crocus, larkspur, daffodil, primrose, pineapple
- Wildflowers: Anemone, squill, daisy, liverwort, dandelion, March cup, March violet, cowslip, snowdrop, winter aconite
- Woods: Spring spar, hazelnut, cornelian cherry. Gingerbread tree, sal willow, decorative mahonia, snow forsythia, daphne, star magnolia, winter jasmine, winter mahonia
- Trees: Maple (silver, ash and red maple), alder (gray, black and purple alder), tree hazel, silver birch, redwood tree
Planting and propagating in March
- Planting herbs: From mid-March, garlic and horseradish as well as perennial herbs such as lemon balm, sorrel, chives and winter hedge onions can be planted.
- Planting fruit trees and berry bushes: You can now plant all fruit trees, including walnut trees and hazelnut bushes. Early spring is also particularly favorable for grape vines, peach and apricot trees. You can also plant out all berry bushes in March: currants, gooseberries, raspberries and blackberries.
- Planting shrubs and hedges: The planting time for trees in the ornamental garden is now also good. Flowering shrubs such as lilac, jasmine, forsythia, deutzia and many others can now move into the garden. This also applies to wild shrubs such as hazel, elderberry and puffball. March is also a good time to plant hedges of hawthorn, hornbeam, privet and barberry.
- Planting roses: As soon as the ground is frost-free, the ideal planting time for roses begins in March. Branches and roots must be cut back before planting. Also make sure that the grafting area is covered with approx. five centimeters of soil.
- Planting and dividing perennials: Especially the autumn blooming perennials are being planted now: chrysanthemums, asters, Japanese anemones and also many grasses. If the weather is favorable, you can also plant flowering primroses and hardy summer perennials such as daisies, coneflowers and daylilies. However, you should clean perennial beds that have already grown in thoroughly and then provide them with fertilizer and compost.
- Planting climbing plants: You can now plant many climbing plants, such as clematis, honeysuckle, wisteria (wisteria), climbing hydrangea and Virginia creeper.
- Moving bulb flowers and separating bulbs: In cloudy, damp weather, you can easily transplant bulb flowers such as crocuses, daffodils and even tulips. Dig them up with plenty of soil and put them back in the new location. You can carefully separate any breeding or daughter bulbs and plant them separately.
- Planting rhubarb and Jerusalem artichokes: March is also ideal for planting rhubarb root pieces and Jerusalem artichoke tubers.
Cutting in March
Now the pruning time for trees is gradually coming to an end. Before the fruit trees start to sprout, the tree pruning should be finished. However, after a particularly long and cold winter, the time for cutting is still good until around the beginning of April. However, if heat sets in early, you have to hurry. In addition, roses and summer-flowering clematis (e.g. Jackmannii hybrids) are now being cut back. The latter bloom on the new tendrils that then sprout. Spring-flowering clematis such as Clematis montana, on the other hand, should only be thinned out carefully, as these varieties bloom on existing shoots from the previous year.
Plant diseases and pests in March
In March it's all about taking preventive action against plant diseases and pest infestations: the less worries and trouble you'll have later in the year. This primarily includes the following measures:
- Find out thesnails that hibernate in cracks in the ground by raking the beds smooth now. In this way you can especially drive the small slugs out of their hiding places, some of which then freeze to death in the cold nights. Snails that you collect and take away now can no longer reproduce in the garden!
- If you constantly have problems with snail infestation,avoid using mulch for a while. This means that the animals find fewer shelter options and can no longer reproduce as much.
- From March you should also sprayhorsetail broth over the ground and on endangered plants. This has a preventive effect against fungal diseases.
- Sprays withtansy tea. help against blackberry mites, strawberry mites and currant gall mites.
- Garlic, which you should plant between strawberries and roses, also helps prevent fungal infections.
- In general,Mixed culture is a great idea to prevent diseases and pest infestation: To ward off carrot and onion flies, you should cultivate carrots and onions in mixed culture.
To make horsetail broth and tansy tea, you can use products from garden shops or prepare them yourself. Although the plants required for this do not grow in March, they can be collected in summer or autumn and dried for further use in spring.
More gardening work in March
- Prepare the beds: Only start working on the beds when the soil has become dry and warm. Heavy clay soils take longer than light sandy soils. When the time is right, rake aside any leftover mulch. Then loosen the soil and pull out old or newly sprouted weeds. Finally, the beds are raked until smooth and finely crumbly. You can also incorporate compost and/or rotted manure now, for example in the areas for future vegetable beds.
- Pre-germinating potatoes: From the beginning of March, the seed potatoes are sorted side by side in clean boxes for pre-germination. They need a bright and moderately warm place. In warm regions, the first early potatoes can be planted towards the end of March if the weather is favorable. However, be sure to wait until the earth has warmed up to at least 7 °C.
- Promoting rhubarb: Place a bucket over fresh rhubarb shoots, then the stalks will grow faster and can be harvested earlier.
- Dumping roses: In warm weather, you can remove the winter protection from older roses and hill the plants. Only then are the roses cut.
- Frost protection for cold frames, polytunnels and greenhouses: It can freeze hard again in March. Then you should cover cold frames and polytunnels with straw mats or blankets overnight; cemetery lights can be set up in the greenhouse to protect against frost. On sunny days, however, you have to ventilate boxes, tunnels and glass houses so that heat does not build up. However, don't forget to close the windows and doors in the evening!
- Repotting potted plants and growing flowers: Now all overwintered balcony and potted plants should be repotted, cut back and placed in the light for growing. In addition, tuberous begonias and cannas as well as dahlias can now be grown. You can even sow summer flowers in not too warm places behind glass.
FAQ
What gardening work will be done in March?
In March it is time, when the weather is good, to prepare the beds, sow the first robust seeds and grow plants on the windowsill and in the (warm) greenhouse. Herbs, fruit trees, shrubs, hedges and perennials can also be planted. Preventative plant protection should also be carried out now, for example by spraying with horsetail broth and tansy tea. It is also important to track down and collect snails so that they do not multiply.
What is sown in March?
In the open ground you should sow hardy seeds, such as broad beans, salsify, split peas, parsnips, carrots, onions, spinach, parsley and caraway. However, make sure the soil is dry and warm - wet and cold soils are more likely to cause seeds to mold. Many heat-loving vegetable plants and summer flowers can now be grown in the greenhouse and on the windowsill. But they don't come into the wild until May.
What do you plant in March?
You can not only sow vegetables under foil (e.g. in a polytunnel), in a greenhouse or in a cold frame, but you can also plant young plants of robust species. Fruit trees and berry bushes, flowering and wild trees, hedge plants, roses, perennials and climbing plants can now move outdoors when the weather is suitable. Bulb flowers can still be moved.
What will be cut in March?
Cut back roses, summer-flowering clematis, perennials and grasses. Fruit trees can be pruned until early April if the winter has been long and cold. However, if it is warm, the cutting time is over.
What plants can you divide in March?
Perennials can be divided in March, for example when transplanting. With onion flowers you can separate the daughter bulbs and plant them separately.
