What to do in the garden in March

In the garden

With longer days, everything starts to grow. Pull weeds now while they’re small and come out easily. Top up the mulch in beds and tree pits with 5-8 cm of pine bark or gravel. It cuts evaporation and holds back weeds before the heat arrives.

Lawn

It’s a good month to reseed bare patches. Scarify the area, sow the seed, cover with a thin layer of fine compost and keep the soil moist until it comes up. Start mowing regularly, never taking off more than a third of the blade height.

Watering

Switch the timer back on. Run a test with every zone open and look for leaks, blocked drippers or crooked sprinklers. As a guide, in March watering once or twice a week, first thing in the morning, is enough, depending on the rain.

Pruning

• Citrus: a light prune after the harvest. Remove water shoots, dead branches and any that cross through the middle.
• Winter-flowering shrubs, such as laurustinus, once they finish flowering.
• Hedges: a first light trim to shape them.

Stop pruning palms now; as it warms up, the red palm weevil becomes active again.

Vegetables and fruit trees

Feed citrus with a specific citrus fertiliser, spread over the drip zone. Plant potatoes and sow carrots, radishes, lettuces and chard directly. Keep looking after the tomato and pepper seedlings in a bright, sheltered spot.

Plants of the month

• Herbs: rosemary, lavender, sage, thyme, cotton lavender.
• Low-water perennials: gaura, gazania, osteospermum.
• Climbers: jasmine, solanum, bignonia.

Hedra’s tip

Don’t water citrus only next to the trunk. Their active roots sit under the edge of the canopy, so spread the drippers in a ring at that distance. Keep the trunk dry to avoid gummosis, a fungal disease that rots the bark at the base.