Great growing weather arrives in March.  With the mild days we’ve been seeing it is time to start those seedlings!  As we enjoy the mild weather, we are taking into account that we will not necessarily be frost-free.  Rain generally falls in abundance, encouraging root growth and plant establishment before the heat of summer.  Buds on deciduous trees and shrubs swell, most prudently waiting to unfurl until the danger of frost has subsided.     

Here are some helpful tips for getting those gardens going:

Indoor Gardening:

Fertilize houseplants as days grow brighter and longer and new growth begins.

Sow slower-starting warm season vegetables like tomatoes and peppers and summer annuals like petunias and impatiens in individual pots and keep in a south or west facing window or grow light garden until April.  

Woody Plants:

Plant balled-and-burlapped, container-grown, or bare-root trees and shrubs. 

Prune trees and shrubs if you haven’t already.  It’s best to do this before the leaves emerge.  Remove dead and injured branches first.  Wait until after flowering to prune spring-blooming shrubs.  

Fertilize woody plants that have been growing slowly or showing poor leaf color if you didn’t do so in February or last fall.  

Lawns:  

Fertilize the lawn and let spring rains carry fertilizer into the soil.  A slow-release source of nitrogen can sustain a lawn for weeks.

Plant seed or plugs for new lawns or to restore established lawns; keep moist; mow when new grass is 3” high.

Adjust lawn-mower height to the kind of grass you have-2” to 3” for tall fescue and Kentucky bluegrass, and 1” to 2” for zoysia.  Raise height to taller limits when the weather heats up in summer. 

Flowers:

Plant ground covers and perennials while ground is moderately cool and moist.

Cut back raggedy liriope and other winter-worn ground covers and evergreen ferns before new growth begins.

Fertilize emerging perennials, especially heavy feeders like peonies, with organic 5-10-5 fertilizer or a little aged manure. 

About 4 weeks before the last frost, set out cool-season annual flowers such as pansies, calendulas, snapdragons, and sweet alyssum.  You can also plant ground covers and perennials such as Shasta daisies, coneflowers, and coreopsis.  Plant native plants that benefit pollinators.  

Kitchen Garden:

While the weather is still cool and the ground is not frozen, plant cabbages, broccoli, kohlrabi, potatoes, cauliflower, peas, spinach, arugula and radishes. 

Plant or transplant strawberries, raspberries, and other small fruit.

Around The Yard: 

Continue spring clean-up.  Cultivate carefully to remove winter weeds and debris from planting beds.  Edge beds!

Whenever the soil is dry enough, use a tiller or spade and hoe to prepare annual beds.