6 Gardening Tips for March

Hello everyone and you are very welcome to this video all about my six tips for the garden in March. Now you may have seen my video in February in which I talked about the things to do in February but March is different. In March everything needs to be done all at the same time so I think there's a little need for me to make a video about what to do in March. Instead I'm going to share with you the six tips that I feel really useful to bear in mind as March hotens up. March really is a wonderful time of year because it holds the promise of what's to come and we begin to see little flowers poking their heads up and buds beginning to break on bushes. It just brings so much joy to us but there is so much to do for us gardeners. Now you already saw my video about what to do in February and of course in March you're finishing up those February jobs that you didn't quite finish in February like finishing off the pruning especially the roses the floribunda and the hybrid tea ones if you haven't done them already and you're continuing to lay mulch on your borders or to fertilize your borders whichever you choose to do but there are also a whole host of other things to do like cutting back grasses cutting back perennials weeding the list goes on but I think while all of this is going on it's very important to bear in mind a few key tips which I'm going to share with you now. I'm Rachel from Dwenza Garden in Ireland and today we are going to look at my six tips for March. My very first piece of advice to you for March is to take it easy on yourself to ease in there gradually so if you're anything like me you'll have spent the months of December and January completely dormant feet up perhaps looking at the odd bulb catalog but not doing work in the garden so it's quite a shock when in March you have to get out there and do everything together all of the time and you need to take it easy because I always find that I seize up a bit in winter and if I step out into the garden too quickly and start doing a whole lot of heavy lifting and digging and everything then I just do myself in and then that's going to auger badly for the rest of the season so just ease in gradually take it easy. My second tip is to only plant plants now in places where you know there's a space so March is a wonderful month for planting out things for dividing perennials and replanting them or for just buying plants and planting them out and it's so tempting to believe we have loads and loads of space in our gardens in March because everything is still asleep just beginning to wake up so you might find yourself trying to plant something in a spot where there is already a plant and you're digging it up and you're damaging it and that's just not right so I would suggest only plant in places where you know there is a space because you observed there was a space last autumn when everything was in full flow and my third tip is to do with sowing seeds March of course is the perfect month for sowing seeds and hardy annuals can be planted in situ in their trays in the greenhouse now we won't go into whether or not it's warm enough to plant them directly outdoors in the garden because well I think that's generally something that's fraught with a heartbreak it's very hard to judge whether the soil is warm enough and you just lose so many seedlings when you sow directly in the ground ones that are more tender like half hardy annuals need to be sown indoors but the real point of this is to let you know that if you're relatively new to gardening don't make the mistake of sowing too many seeds in the one pot I really like to use those trays with lots of individual cells and maybe put about three seeds in each cell three is the ideal number for me because if I plant loads in then I have to prick them out later on and that is always a job nobody looks forward to and nobody wants to do and it takes a lot of time and if you don't do it then your seedlings are just going to wither away and die but three is a magic number because at least one is bound to germinate and if all three germinate well then you can just get a little teaspoon and excavate the extra ones and put them into their own cell a little bit later on when they've got a couple of true leaves and moving on to mowing be sensible about mowing it's very annoying at this stage in the game when you've gone to the trouble of weeding and edging a bed and it's as best as it can look but the grass is still long and you know that your beds just aren't going to look anyway as good as they should do until the grass is cut but don't be tempted to mow the lawn if it's wet if it's wet then you're going to end up damaging the lawn and you're going to have to spend time repairing it later on so maybe hold back a bit if conditions are too wet and of course in terms of lawn it's a great time to repair any damage that has already been done and i will refer to you to a video i made last autumn about repairing your lawn you can do it in autumn you can do it in spring and if you do it now then it's going to be as good as new by the time summer rolls around and do bear in mind it is just spring so be kind to yourself if it is really piddling down with rain don't go out and garden you're going to end up giving yourself a cold and you're going to then postpone going out and doing the jobs that need to be done as they need to be done now don't get me wrong i live in ireland it rains a lot here we have to garden when it rains mostly because otherwise we'd never get anything done but you know on a day when it's really really wet just bear in mind that it is march you do have time to get those jobs done so maybe it's not a good idea to get yourself absolutely drenched maybe just you know stay in for the day or stay in the greenhouse sow some seeds and then face everything again the next day and my final tip is to do with encouraging you the gardener i always find it so encouraging to look at what's in flower and to photograph it so if things are coming up if they're looking good those are the ones i'll prioritize i'll weed around them i'll make it just look really nice around them maybe edge and the grass just where they are and take photographs wait for a nice sunny day to get the best results not a horrible overcast day as we have today and get out there with the camera and take those photographs and put them up in social media if that's what you want to do but encourage yourself because really we need to be doing lots of that in this climate and that's about it those are my six simple tips for gardening in march maybe you'll find them useful and maybe you have a couple of extra ones yourself there is just so much to do in march and it's very hard to keep track of when to do what and did i finish that pruning and whatever so lists are useful but i said i wasn't going to give you a list of things to do in march just little tips and maybe the list is an extra one anyway thank you as always for watching and i hope you will check back for my video next week which should be outdoors again doing all those things we love or hate to do probably love because in march it's so wonderful to see things popping up and we'll see them again next week thanks for watching bye