Best Horticultural Tips for March
Garden
Lawn
Garden
- Mid-March is the usual time to trim group II and group III clematis vines. However, not if it is still snowing! Unsure about when to trim your clematis vine? Check out https://extension.unl.edu/statewide/douglas-sarpy/pdfs/ce/resources/ce-g1861-clematis.pdf
- Plan on pruning your panicle hydrangeas early in spring.
- If this spring happens to be wet and slime mold appears in mulch, DO NOT use pesticides to combat it. Simply scoop up and put in trash.
- The USDA Plant Database (See Resource page of website) will help you identify native species and find where they are grown.
- Your best bet for all-purpose balanced fertilizer is a 10-10-10.
- Fertilizer for annuals and vegetables is one application in spring after planting.
- You may also give perennials and shrubs one application of a slow-release fertilizer in early spring. Or you may work in some good compost around the plants.
- Remember that cultivating the soil in spring opens up the weed seed bank and brings weed seeds up to the surface of the soil. Be ready to pull! Or you may lay newsprint down (not slick and colored advertisements) and then cover with mulch or grass clippings. Lay down a whole section of the newspaper at one time.
- Remember when scanning the catalogs, a biennial is a plant that normally lives for just two years. The first year a basal rosette forms. In the second year the plant flowers. While some plants may hang on for one more year, don’t count on it. Many biennials will spread from seed.
- Purchase your composted manure (and Oma-Gro, if you can still find it) in order to be ready for planting and transplanting.
- Perennials may be lightly fertilized in spring with a 10-10-10 fertilizer, but be careful to avoid covering the center or crown of the perennial. Compost may also be used. Dig in lightly around the plant.
- There are three types of clematis and they all need different types of pruning. Keep the tag whenever you purchase a clematis.
- To put the “right plant in the right place” make sure you understand light terminology:
Part shade equals 4-6 hours of mostly morning sun or all day dappled light.
Full shade equals 2-4 hours of sun. - Plan to get creative in with your bulbs. While crocuses, daffodils and tulips are garden classics, plan to try something different like alliums or windflowers.
- Snowdrops should be up and blooming already. Look for pasque flowers toward the end of the month.
- Mulch is one of the best tools in the gardener’s toolbox. Skip rock mulch, which retains too much heat, and opt for organic mulch instead. Save yourself a headache later and skip the landscape fabric.
- Tall sedum is so drought tolerant that you do not have to worry about watering it.
- Here are five common plants that benefit from deadheading: phlox, salvia, geranium, petunia, shasta daisy.
- Do not be in a big toot to get into the garden and start cleaning up. Leaf litter will protect plants from the freezes that are still to come. Stepping on thawing soil will only serve to compact it, which is not good for the plants.
- Most insecticides are not effective against adult scale insects because of their waxy coatings. Horticulture oil is effective.
- Remove winter dust from houseplants with a damp cloth or put the plants in the shower.
Lawn
- Please be aware that crabgrass (an annual) does not germinate until soil temperatures warm up to 55 degrees. You can check your soil temp for our local area at https://gretnawx.net/
- Lawn companies often start putting the crabgrass treatment down in mid-March because they have hundreds of customers. Everyone does not get the treatment at the optimum time. But then, they cannot service all customers on the same day or even in the same week.
- Goosegrass, another low-growing annual with a broadleaf blade and a whitish center point, germinates 4-6 weeks after crabgrass.
- Cool season grass seed germinates best when the soil temps are between 50–60 degrees. Buy high quality seed. Cheap seed may contain a lot of weed seeds. Read the packaging. It will tell you there. No sense planting future problems.
- When spring seeding, the key is to have seed down before mid-April when crabgrass normally germinates. DO NOT put down pre-emergent in March if you want to over seed the grass in April.
- For a reliable turf grass calendar for eastern Nebraska, go to https://extension.unl.edu/statewide/douglas-sarpy/lawn/
- Cool season grass seed germinates best when the soil temps are between 50–60 degrees. Buy high quality seed. Cheap seed may contain a lot of weed seeds. Read the packaging. It will tell you there. No sense planting future problems.
- When spring seeding, the key is to have seed down before mid-April when crabgrass normally germinates. DO NOT put down pre-emergent in March if you want to over seed the grass in April.
- Knotweed germinates between February and March. A pre-emergent is more effective than post-emergent.
- The best time to control dandelions with herbicides is in the fall (mid-September through mid-October). Digging is a better option in spring and summer.
- Crabgrass germinates when the soil temps reach 55 degrees for about four consecutive days.
- Slow release fertilizer can be used on shrubs. Or, compost can be worked in the soil from the base to the drip line of the shrub.
- Trees almost always perform better in the company of other trees. So instead of planting just one tree, see if you can plant three. Just know how big the species you are planting will grow to at maturity. Some people plant trees way too close to the house. Then when problems develop, someone gets paid to remove the tree.
- A leaf must manufacture enough food to support its own needs and then export a surplus to the limbs and branches, and finally, the roots.
- Branches that are in the process of dying present an enlarged collar. If you remove the branch yourself, DO NOT trim off the collar! Trees are an investment. It is better to call a professional to do the work. It is often easy to drive through a neighborhood and tell where the DIY tree-trimming project are. Knowledge and experience make a difference.
will help you identify native species and find where they are grown - Your best bet for all-purpose balanced fertilizer is a 10-10-10.
- Fertilizer for annuals and vegetables is one application in spring after planting.
- You may also give perennials and shrubs one application of a slow-release fertilizer in early spring. Or you may work in some good compost around the plants.
- Remember that cultivating the soil in spring opens up the weed seed bank and brings weed seeds up to the surface of the soil. Be ready to pull! Or you may lay newsprint down (not slick and colored advertisements) and then cover with mulch or grass clippings. Lay down a whole section of the newspaper at one time.
- Trees almost always perform better in the company of other trees. So instead of planting just one tree, see if you can plant three. Just know how big the species you are planting will grow to at maturity. Some people plant trees way too close to the house. Then when problems develop, someone gets paid to remove the tree.
- A leaf must manufacture enough food to support its own needs and then export a surplus to the limbs and branches, and finally, the roots.
- Branches that are in the process of dying present an enlarged collar. If you remove the branch yourself, DO NOT trim off the collar! Trees are an investment. It is better to call a professional to do the work. It is often easy to drive through a neighborhood and tell where the DIY tree-trimming project are. Knowledge and experience make a difference.
- Remove all tree wraps by the end of this month.
- Prune apples trees while they are dormant--preferably late winter or very early spring. Pruning encourages air circulation and light penetration, which reduces disease and increases fruit production.
- Water trees and shrubs planted last fall as ground permits
- No tree should be staked longer than one year. Remove the collar and the stake.
- Place your prettiest flowering shrubs where they can be seen through the windows from inside the house.