- Service your lawn mower – clean it off thoroughly, sharpen or replace the blades, install a new air filter and spark plugs.
- Gardening tools – clean them if you didn’t get a chance to do it last fall, sharpen them, replace blades, tighten screws, etc.
- Purchase your garden seeds, fertilizer, grass seed, etc. and be ready to go when the time is right.
- Prepare your lists or double check them on the plants you’re going to use for your annual beds and containers.
Perennial Beds
- If you didn’t mulch your perennial beds last fall – check them if you can now or as soon as the snow melts enough to get a look at them. If you see frost heaving of the perennials – try your best to get them back in the ground and apply some mulch to them until the soils warm up uniformly to prevent the frost heaving.
- Late in March, pull back the mulch and keep it handy in case of a April cold snap and
- Remove stems and seed pods that you kept for winter interest and
- On your ornamental grasses – clip them down to a few inches above the ground.
Pruning Trees and Shrubs
March is definitely the time to complete pruning your trees. Make sure you get your oaks, honeylocusts, and elms pruned before the weather warms up. The fruits trees and maple trees can be safely pruned now without a problem. The sap that will run isn’t going to harm the trees now- it’s just a little messy is all. Pruning trees when the leaves are off makes it so easy to see the true architecture of the tree and will enable you to make the best decisions as to what to prune out and what to leave.
Shrubs – - – - be careful what you’re pruning. If you have spring blooming shrubs – Forsythias, Lilacs, some Spireas, Azaleas, Rhododendrons, etc. do not prune now until after they have flowered. If you prune now, you will be removing the flower buds and you will have the spring show that you waited all winter for. Flowering shrubs should be pruned after they have flowered. For shrubs that you have that don’t flower – they can be pruned anytime with the except of the pine shrubs. Pine shrubs – such as the Mugho Pine – should only be pruned from mid-May to Mid-June.
