March Gardening Tips

& Maintenance Reminders

• Apply Fertilome Lawn Food plus Crabgrass preventer to keep Crabgrass and other selective broadleaf weeds from germinating.

• Apply Treflan Pre-emergent herbicide granules to your landscape planting beds to prevent the germination of a broad range of broadleaf weed grasses. This is one of the most important single weed control steps that you can do.

• Nandina, with emphasis of the most common Dwarf Purple Nandina, need to be pruned hard annually. We suggest cutting back Nandina in early spring before new growth appears. It's suggested to bring Dwarf Nandina back by appx. 50% varying the cane heights somewhat.

• Aerate "Core Cultivate" your lawn area in early spring to promote the many benefits such as lessening soil compaction, improving water and nutrient flow, and bring soil and beneficial bacteria to the surface to assist in breaking down thatch buildup. Click here to view our lawn info page for more info.

• Cut back your Liriope "Monkey Grass" down to the ground level before the new pips or shoots begin to emerge. This allows you to pull all of the old foliage together and cut off low with hand pruners or shears. Its important not to cut the tops of the new growth which will cause permanent damage to this year's new growth foliage.

• Fertilizer your landscape trees, shrubs, perennials, and ground covers using one of Fertilome's many quality well balanced fertilizers. Click here to view a wide variety of Fertilome's products that we commonly suggest to our customers. Fertilome Tree & Shrub food, Azalea food, and Gardener's Special is three of our most common fertilizers. Also, fertilizer fruit trees with Fertilome Fruit Tree fertilizer.

• Prune back Crape Myrtles in the early spring cutting back from a range of 1/4 - 1/3 of their size. This not only controls over growing size, especially if you have size restrictions to your area, but also promote heavy summer blooming because Crape Myrtles bloom mainly on new wood meaning that heavy pruning promoting heavier new growth shoots directly causes prolific flowering.

• Apply Fertilome Weed Zone to as a selective or broadcast spray to difficult to control early cool season weeds such as Wild Violets, chick weed, and other difficult to control broadleaf weeds. Fertilome Weed Zone works better in cooler weather than many other types of lawn weed killers.

• Break out all of those stored lawn and garden tools and equipment to evaluate cleaning, sharpening, and replacements to be ready for that day you dedicate to playing in the garden. There's nothing more frustrating than starting one of your gardening tasks to find out that your tool has broken or that those favorite pruners need sharpening causing you fatigue in managing your gardening tasks.

• Early spring is a great time for rejuvenating Hollies that have been allowed to simply out grow their space. Rejuvenating pruning on Hollies can involve pruning back heavy branches anywhere from 1/3 to 2/3's of the way back. It's amazing how quick they respond to spring's quick development, but remember, don't wait till late spring or early summers. That's too late!

• Prune back your Hybrid Tea, Floribunda, & Grandiflora Roses to 24-30" tall. When doing this, think out some of the smaller canes and leave only a balanced structure of larger canes that will promote strong and balanced growth in the spring.

• Perennials need to be fully cut back to prepare for the new growth surge soon to occur this spring. This enables you to clean up all dead foliage and dormant branches as well as offers a unique time to easily broadcast Fertilome's Gardener's Special fertilizer over the soil's surface within the perennial gardens. Also, it's a great time to apply a shallow application of Pine Bark Shredded Mulch to the surface before foliage begins to emerge.

• Ornamental grasses such as Pampass, Miscanthus, Feather Reed, and Fountain grasses need to be cut down to a very low mounded tuft that will not be exposed when the new foliage begins to appear. Be sure not to cut the tops of the newly emerging foliage to not cause any permanent damage to the tops of the grass blades, so do this as soon as possible before warmer temperatures arrive.

• Check any tree supports or ties that may have become tight enough to girdle or restrict a tree's trunk or branch growth. Either remove the tree staking system totally if the tree is well established, or loosen and retie to ensure room for trunk growth.

• Hydrangeas.....what a confusing category of shrubs when it comes to pruning.  Common big leaf Hydrangea, or Hydrangea macrophylla only bloom on old wood, so don't prune them back in the spring. That will cause no flowers this summer. Annabelle Hydrangea and Pee Gee Hydrangea flower on new and old wood, so it's OK to prune these hydrangea categories during the spring to manage overall size. We find that pruning these varieties promote strong growth patterns which in turn promotes more new wood and increased flowering.

• Garden preparation is key to preparing adequate soil conditions vegetable crops. Cultivating your garden soil by hand or by machine tilling methods promotes looser more compact soils improving development of root systems. Ask about which vegetable crops can accept the use of pre-emergent herbicides to provide preventative weed control.

• Starting your indoor seeds for vegetables and annuals for now to get a jump on your intended spring crop. A bright light window of high intense artificial grow light would be needed to keep seedings short and more compact.

• Fruit trees need to  be thinning during the winter months, so there a brief period of time that you can still manage pruning and thinning of fruit trees to promote a proper spacing of branches bringing light deeper into the center of the tree promoting deeper and heavier flowering ultimately meaning more fruit.

• Mulching is commonly performed during the early spring months due to the ease of mulching over dormant perennials making tihs chore a little easier. March mulching prepares your garden for moisture retention in the summer, but also minimizes soil temperature fluctuations keeping those early spring temperatures from bringing up those bulbs and perennials too early and keeping shrubs from reacting too quickly to warm temperatures and risking frost damage to new growth and flowers.

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