Gardening tips for March 2026

Time marches on? Perhaps it’s an age thing!  School days seemed to last for ever and before we know it, we’re retired, getting up for morning coffee and going to bed after the news headlines, the days have now most certainly contracted.  The remedy: get out into the garden and do more gardening, get up with the lark and call it a day when one can’t see through the gloom to dig in the right place anymore.  With the march of time what were old gardeners (I mean, gardeners of old) up to in March of years gone by?

Middleton’s Gardening Guide from 1955 is somewhat forthright with its advice, particularly what not to do:

• “DON’T make a lawn because you think it is easy to look after and then neglect it.  Grass needs as much attention as any plant.”

• “DON’T completely fill your garden with crazy paving and then stop all the cracks with cement, in order to save yourself trouble.  It will always look terrible, and no matter how you bind the earth down it will ultimately burst through.  Strong weeds will soon penetrate your cement.”

• “DON’T, whatever you do, use pieces of broken stone or concrete flag and push them edgewise into your border.  They are ugly, get in the way and show an utter want of good taste.”

• “DON’T buy Derbyshire Spar stone, that bright white, rather glittering rock, to dot about your borders.  It looks bad and shows a lack of understanding of the use of stone in a garden.  In any case it is rough and tears the skin when weeding amongst it.”

I hope I’m not so blunt with my advice, there may be more than one way to achieve something and anything suggested here is simply that – a suggestion!

Suggestions for what to do and what not to do is fine for the gardener with a garden but what if there is no garden, I shall ponder that thought for the coming months.

The kitchen garden

Stanley Whitehead writes in his The Good Gardener’s Encyclopaedia (1964) that “as soon as the frost moves out of the soil, break down rough dug soil, forking and raking (and weeding) it to a fine, crumbly tilth, to make a seed bed.  Choose your time well in clay soil, break it down as soon as it becomes workable otherwise the clods become brick hard.”  Sound advice but after the rain we have endured throughout the start of the year so far, our heavy clay soil is more swamp than thriving productive garden.  In the space of as little as one growing season the problem can be alleviated by the addition of compost (better if home made in a compost bin), manure (suggestion, not homemade, use horse or cow manure or buy bagged manure from the garden centre), leaf mould (bag up all those fallen leaves and dig them into the soil next year) and finally, finely chipped bark.  All of these additional organic materials will improve the soil structure and attracts microorganisms and worms, which further loosen the soil as they move through it.  It won’t however stop the rain from falling.

The flower garden

Did you know that Shakespeare liked daffodils? Not for him the term Narcissus. Narcissism was more an attribute for many of his leading characters.  Hopefully daffodils have given a good show and now should be the time for deadheading before seed pods develop and let the foliage die back naturally, when starting to yellow the foliage can be removed completely.

Middleton likes to prescribe what to do each week of the year, however Stanley Whitehead suggests that “although March is a planting and sowing month, the weather must call the tune, not the calendar.”  Therefore, if ground conditions and the weather permit, now is a good time to plant most deciduous shrubs and trees and perennial border plants.  If the weather is warmer than expected - or certainly by the end of the month - now is the time for planting evergreens and conifers.

Lawns

National First Mow of the Year Day is 15^th March this year. A timely reminder to check the mower making sure it is fit for purpose and as always take it easy at first with a high cut and subsequently reduce to your preferred height but always leave the lawn looking green after cutting.

Keep gardening.                                                                  

Richard Haigh