What To Do In The Garden In March

“March weather, savage and serene in one hour…”  March in the garden usually heralds the real arrival of Spring. Not so this year, we’ve had unseasonably mild, warm, sunny weather, lots of rain, and plunging Arctic temperatures with drifts of snow. Honestly, what are us gardeners supposed to do? Not to mention all the plants and wildlife. But Nature is very resilient, fortunately, so let’s take a look at this month’s garden tasks and what to do in your garden in March.

What To Do In The Garden In March

As usual, I’ll break this latest garden update down into sections: flowers, vegetables, fruits, jobs, wildlife. So, you can skip to whatever you want to read about – although obviously I hope you’ll enjoy the full article with this month’s garden tasks and all my March gardening tips too 🙂

March In The Flower Garden

As you might expect there are lots of flowering plants in March to enjoy. And if you had to pick just one hue to lift the spirits and brighten your mood, yellow is very definitely the colour. Just look at all these zingy little tete-a-tetes.

They’re little pops of joy and happy everywhere, in the ground or in pots. The larger daffodils in the last picture have taken a bit of a battering thanks to the recent snow and winds, but I’m sure they’ll catch up soon.

Vibrant yellow also comes from our lovely Forsythias. Tip: they make excellent hedging plants as well as ornamental bushes. And they always make me think of my mother’s garden, she had lots of them, and used to cut them for the house as well.

Other beautiful Spring bulbs include some delicate little blue Muscari, aka Grape Hyacinth, and their big cousin, a real Hyacinth. This was originally a houseplant that I popped into the ground after she’d finished flowering last year.

Our orchard has masses of multi-coloured wild primroses now. From the traditional pale yellow, to a lovely pink interloper that’s clearly self-seeded from somewhere else. They must be very happy here as more and more plants appear every year.

And we have some flowering corms, as opposed to flowering bulbs, too – my favourite purple Crocuses and some pretty little blue Windflowers.

My superstar flowering plants are still our Hellebores though (see this month’s cover pic). Regular readers of my garden updates will know I wax lyrical about these perennials, which bloom from mid-January until April. Yes, they’re expensive to buy, but they last for years. Tip: look on the sale table at garden centres this month. Don’t worry about dead foliage on top, as long as their roots are healthy, they’ll settle in and grow away very happily – aren’t they gorgeous?

My favourite Winter Honeysuckle by our front door is still providing lots of fragrance for us and nectar and pollen for visiting bumble bees. Just look at those furry little legs…

A couple of new March flowering shrubs that we planted in our new borders last Spring are pouring out scent whenever we walk past. Viburnum and Daphne Odora both seem are easy to grow and don’t appear to mind drought, heat, rain, ice, or snow – I must buy some more!

The Sweet Pea* seeds I sowed in the greenhouse in January have finally sprouted. So, although they’re nowhere near as bushy as my November-sown seeds would have been, I’m very grateful to have some growth to nurture.

Meanwhile, I’m continuing to enjoy the colour from the Cyclamen and Campanula on our kitchen windowsills. Tip: you can plant both these plants out in the garden in March once they’ve finished flowering.

March In The Vegetable Garden

Most of our vegetables in March are still in the planning stage – such as our favourite ‘Rainbow Blend’ F1 Hybrid tomatoes* and favourite Burpless Tasty Green cucumbers* which I’ll sow indoors to start with. But good news, the second batch of Broad Beans* I sowed in January has burst into life – we have 14 plants with lovely long taproots. Although I haven’t got around to digging over our raised beds and putting cloches* on the soil to warm up the ground in preparation for planting them out yet.

March In The Fruit Garden

Fruit in March is not yet ready to harvest in our garden. Our Apple and Pear fruit trees are booked in for their prune later this month, but we’ll leave our soft fruit Plum and Cherry trees alone until the Summer. I’ll be giving our acid soil-loving blueberry plants an ericaceous feed*, and our blackcurrant bushes a high-nitrogen feed* though. And mulching our rhubarb with a thick layer of well-rotted manure to feed and protect it, avoiding the crowns where new growth is already peeking through.

The gooseberries do better on poorer soil, so they don’t need any extra help. And it’s always encouraging to see our Japanese quince bush and damson tree with early blooms and blossom – fingers crossed for no more hard frosts now…

Indoors, it’s all go though – we’ve been harvesting lots of edible pelargonium leaves for herb teas over Winter, and are looking forward to picking our lemons for gin and tonics later this Summer 🙂 The lemon tree came from ALDI last year and, no word of a lie, I’m VERY proud of myself for managing to grow our own lemons!

General March Gardening Jobs

What should I do in my garden in March? Top of my March gardening to do list is another carry forward, to clean all the seed trays, pots, baskets, and containers. Usually, mid-March is time to start thinking about sowing your hardy annual flower seeds and planting Summer bulbs. But with the weather the way it is, I may leave this until early April instead, when the light and temperature levels are more consistent.

I’ve pruned our Hydrangeas back hard, as they were quite leggy, and put in plant supports around those shrubs that need it, like our Euphorbias with their new green growth that’s still soft. Tip: before the soil warms up too much, dig some pelleted chicken manure* into your borders, to prepare for the growing season ahead. Chicken manure smells foul, so it has the added bonus of discouraging our cats and the neighbouring felines from using our garden as a toilet. 😾 And I’ll top dress all our plant pots by removing the top couple of inches of soil, replacing it with fresh compost. 

March lawn care has gone by the wayside so far this month – Alan gave the grass its first light trim of the year in February, but he claims snow isn’t really compatible with mowing the grass… His other job is keeping the “doorways” in our orchard fence free from weeds, to allow any hedgehogs safe passage from our garden into the next-door field. Tip: if you’re lucky enough to spot any hedgehogs who’ve emerged from hibernation early, leave them out some fresh water and meat-based cat food, not milk as this will give them upset tummies.

March Gardening For Wildlife

Alan is on daily bird feeder duty, keeping them topped up with quality wild bird food* and high energy fat balls* to build them up ahead of the nesting season.

March pond care tip: we’re leaving a football in the water to prevent a solid edge-to-edge ice sheet forming so any frogs, newts, or fish don’t suffocate.

Do you remember the frogs in our smaller wildlife pond last month? Look what they did! And I’ve counted no less than 24 pairs of frogs in our larger pond, which has also started to fill up with frogspawn – fingers crossed for no more sub-zero temperatures.

Our Garden In March

And we’ve reached the end of my third garden post of 2023. I hope you’ve found it a useful guide and reminder of things to do in your garden in March. And that you’ll join me next month for my April garden update when some more of those daffodil shoots should be flaunting their gorgeous, sunny, yellow flowers. In the meantime, I’m currently dreaming of when we can sit outside alongside our new patio heater with a built in Bluetooth speaker* and enjoy our garden – I mean seriously, how cool will this be!

I hope you’ve enjoyed your virtual visit to March in our garden? Isn’t it wonderful to see so much colour coming through at last? What are you loving seeing in your garden or outside space right now?

* This post features affiliate links but all opinions are my own (see my Disclaimer).