March Gardening Diary " As many mists as ye have in March, so many frosts in May " March is one of the busier months of the year in the garden and it is a good thing to be kept busy during the long gloom of Lent. The planting of deciduous trees, shrubs, fruits and roses should be finished as soon as possible to give them a chance to get a grip of the soil before drought may punish them. In a warm sheltered border we may be planting evergreens such as Laurels, conifers, hollies, azaleas and rhododendrons. Most herbaceous perennials can also be planted now. Rose pruning should be carried on and finished this month, subject to the weather: better not to prune during a period of heavy frost. Hybrid tea roses may be pruned back to five or so buds with all sickly and dead wood cut away. Climbing roses should have their side branches cut back to two buds. It is worth feeding the roses with a dedicated rose fertiliser now as the leaves are making their first appearance and spraying with a fungicide from now until June should keep the leaves looking clean all season. Unlike most bulbous rooted plants, snowdrops will benefit from being lifted and divided every few years as the clumps can become very crowded, leading to a mass of blind shoots. In the vegetable garden we should be aiming first at the creation of the all important fine tilth. As always, the weather is master/mistress. The soil should be visibly drying; better to wait until the end of the month or beyond before sowing a seed if there is any hint of stickiness. The reader will have dug over the plot thoroughly last autumn, digging in barrowfuls of horse droppings, compost, shoddy and celebrity magazines. The floods and gales of winter will have weathered the diggings down to an uneven crumbly surface. Patient raking eventually renders our seed bed smooth and fine, air pockets being trodden out as we go. We might allow ourselves five minutes leaning on the rake indulging in a short pipe and a gloat over our seed bed, well prepared and superior to next door's. Only now may we sow. The first sowings may be of peas, leeks, parsnips (always use new seed), broad beans, parsley, spinach and radishes, onion and shallot sets may be planted nearer the end of the month, a trowel is better than a dibber for these as any compaction encourages them to wriggle free of the ground. Garlic may still be planted but no time should be lost. New beds of Thyme, Tarragon, Mint and other herbs may be planted out towards the middle of Lent. Early potatoes to go in from the Ides of March, planted about six inches down, these early plantings will run some risk from frost but it is good to see the neat rows of tight foliage as soon as possible and any frost-blackened shoots will soon be replaced. The older gardening books advised to carry around a bale of straw at all times during March and early April to spread over tender shoots in the case of a late frost. For those who commune with the moon and garden by her phases and the biodynamic system of lunar planting, root crops to be planted or sown during the waning gibbous, from the 18th to the 25th. The rows for runner beans may be prepared now, this should involve digging in barrowfuls of compost or horsey stuff a foot and a half down and allowed to settle down over the next six to eight weeks before sowing.
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