Your March Garden Calendar Guide

Your March Garden Calendar Guide


Ornamentals
• Weeks 1-4: Trees, shrubs and perennials may be planted as soon as they become available
at local nurseries.
• Weeks 1-4: Fertilize bulbs with a “bulb booster” formulation broadcast over the planting beds. Hose off any granules that stick to the foliage.
• Weeks 1-4: Dormant mail order plants should be unwrapped immediately. Keep the roots from drying out, store in a cool protected spot, and plant as soon as conditions allow.
• Weeks 1-2: Heavy pruning of trees should be complete before growth occurs. Trees should not be pruned while the new leaves are growing.
• Weeks 3-4: Ornamental grasses should be cut to the ground just as the new growth begins.
• Weeks 3-4: Spring bedding plants, such as pansies and toadflax (Linaria sp.), may be planted outdoors now.
• Weeks 3-4: Apply sulfur to the soils around acid-loving plants such as azaleas, rhododendrons, hollies and dogwoods. Use a granular formulation at the rate of 1/2 pound per 100 square feet.

Vegetables
• Weeks 1-4: Any root crops such as horseradish, parsnips, Jerusalem artichokes, or carrots still in the ground from last year should be harvested before new green top growth appears.
• Weeks 1-4: Fertilize the garden as the soil is being prepared for planting. Unless directed otherwise by a soil test, 1 to 2 pounds of 12-12-12 or an equivalent fertilizer per 100 square feet is usually sufficient.
• Weeks 1-2: Delay planting if the garden soil is too wet. When a ball of soil crumbles easily after being squeezed together in your hand, it is dry enough to be safely worked.
• Weeks 1-2: Asparagus and rhubarb roots should be planted as soon as the ground can be worked.
• Weeks 2-4: Plant peas, lettuce, radishes, kohlrabi, mustard greens, collards, turnips, Irish potatoes, spinach and onions (seeds and sets) outdoors.
• Weeks 3-4: Plant beets, carrots, parsley and parsnip seeds outdoors.
• Week 4: Start seeds of tomatoes, peppers and eggplants indoors.

Fruits
• Weeks 1-4: Gradually remove mulch from strawberries as the weather begins to warm.
• Weeks 1-3: Continue pruning apple trees. Burn or destroy all prunings to minimize insect or disease occurrence.
• Weeks 2: Cleft and splice grafting can be done now. This must be completed before rootstocks break dormancy.
• Weeks 3-4: Aphids begin to hatch on fruit trees as the buds begin to open.
• Weeks 3-4: Apply dormant oil sprays now. Choose a dry day when freezing temperatures are not expected.
• Weeks 3-4: Spray peach trees with a fungicide for the control of peach leaf curl disease.

Miscellaneous
• Week 1: Red maples begin to bloom.
• Week 1: Set up nesting boxes for bluebirds.
• Week 1: Watch for the Harbinger of Spring (Erigenia bulbosa) blooming in rich wooded areas.
• Weeks 2-4: Spicebush is blooming in moist woodlands.
• Week 2: Raise purple martin houses this week.
• Week 3: Purple martins return to the St. Louis area.
• Week 4: The white flowers of serviceberry (Amelanchier sp.) and wild plum (Prunus americana) are showy in wooded areas.
• Week 4: Watch for the fuzzy blooms of the pussy willow (Salix sp.).