Top 10 garden tasks for March

We’ve been busy ensuring our gardens look tip-top for our opening day on 18th March. It’s also a good time for home gardeners to get to work, preparing your garden for later, while also enjoying the beauty of spring bulbs - and hopefully the odd day of sunshine here and there!

Here’s our list of the top 10 tasks you can do in your garden in March:

1. Prune shrubs & roses

Now’s the time to prune back roses, buddleia, wisteria, honeysuckle or hydrangeas to ensure full, bushy growth before the flowering season. It’s also time to prune any winter flowering shrubs that have finished their flowering season.

2. Plant summer bulbs

Plant dahlia and lily bulbs now to give them time to establish.

3. Sow annual seeds

If you want the best bang for your buck, buy hardy annuals as seeds rather than plug plants and sow them now. Your best bet is to keep seedlings under glass or indoors until the weather warms up.

4. Give acid-loving plants a good feed

Feed your ericaceous plants such as rhododendrons, azaleas, camellias and pieris with a good quality ericaceous fertiliser.

5. Tidy up ornamental grasses

Trim back deciduous grasses and remove dead grass from evergreen varieties.

6. Prepare your veg plot

It’s backbreaking work, but now is the time to improve the soil in your vegetable garden to improve yields later on. It will be worth it!

7. Plant snowdrops for next year

Speaking of doing your preparation early, now is the perfect time to plant snowdrops so you can enjoy them next year.

8. Tidy up spring flowering bulbs that have finished

Pick off any seedheads or dead flower heads on daffodils and other spring bulbs, but don’t cut back the leaves - let them die back naturally.

9. Look after your alpines

Spring is when the alpine garden starts to flower, so remove any dead foliage and top off the rockery with some grit or gravel to keep the damp away from foliage.

10. Weed & mulch your borders

Last but not least, keep on top of developing weeds in the border - it’s much easier to remove them while they’re still young and the soil is moist. And once you’ve done that, top off with a good thick layer of mulch.