Garden Detective: March garden calendar
Spring rolls in later this month, and with it, the welcome transition between winter and summer. While crocuses emerge and pansies reveal their smiling faces, we begin the great cleanup to make way for new perennials and the summer harvest. Gardening chores trickle in and gain momentum as the month progresses. Here's one for each day of the month.
March Calendar
1. Keep an eye out for crocuses, pansies and other signs of life in the garden, and be among the first to share photos at newsday.com/springblooms.
2. Test your soil's pH levels, or have Cornell Cooperative Extension master gardeners do the job for you. (Call 516-228-0426 in Nassau, 631-727-7850 in Suffolk for details).
3. Prune deciduous shrubs and trees, including fruit trees, while they're still dormant, but delay the job on spring bloomers until after their show.
4. Take inventory of your seed-starting supplies.
5. Feed spring-flowering bulbs with a high-nitrogen, quick-release fertilizer as soon as they poke out of the ground.
6. Cut butterfly bush (Buddleia) down to the ground.
7. Fertilize deciduous and evergreen trees.
8. Clear away spent foliage from perennials and annuals left behind in spring, and rake beds clean.
9. Give compost piles a shot of fish or bone meal to boost decomposition.
10. Cut back last year's ornamental grasses and feed with a slow-release lawn fertilizer.
11. Prune roses, cutting just above outward-facing buds, and fertilize. If plants were affected by black spot or powdery mildew last year, remove and replace the mulch around them now.
12. Start seeds of annual plants indoors.
13. Remove all raspberry canes that bore fruit last year and cut the rest back by a quarter.
14. Apply horticultural oil to deciduous trees to protect from mites, aphids and scale.
15. Completely remove dead stems from oak-leaf hydrangeas, thin last year's grown on peegees, and cut smooth hydrangeas all the way to the ground. (See identifying photos at newsday.com/lilife)
16. As long as there's no snow on the ground and the soil is dry enough to crumble in your hand, plant peas, lettuce and radishes outdoors.
17. Grow flowering shamrocks in honor of St. Patrick. Look for potted houseplants or bulbs labeled "Oxalis."
18. Enrich the vegetable patch with lime, compost and fertilizer, then cover with plastic sheet mulch to warm the soil.
19. Relocate shrubs that need moving now, while they're still dormant. But don't fertilize yet.
20. Spring has sprung! Plant some pansies.
21. Divide fall-blooming perennials.
22. Plant trees and shrubs.
23. If your blueberry bush is more than 5 years old, cut away all but 10 of the youngest, strongest canes. Remove one-quarter of flower buds for larger fruit this year.
24. Pull weeds as soon as they emerge. Wait until they're established and your job will be exponentially more difficult.
25. Start seeds of peppers, tomatoes and eggplants indoors in sterile potting mix. Water from the bottom to avoid damping off, a disease that plagues seedlings kept too moist.
26. Got bare spots in the lawn? Seed once a week and water twice a day until new growth is as tall as the rest of the grass. But don't fertilize until late May.
27. Plant tubers and rhizomes stored over the winter in a 50/50 peat-perlite mix indoors. Caladiums should go in knobby side up; tuberous begonias, hollow side up; cannas, eyes looking up and buried only halfway.
28. Repot houseplants into the next size container and give them a sip of liquid organic seaweed fertilizer.
29. Decide to plant one crop you've never tried before. This year, I'm giving corn a whirl.
30. If you've received bare-root roses early, keep them in their packages in a cool, dark place until planting time next month.
31. Clean up around ground covers and vines, and apply a slow-release fertilizer before new growth begins.
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