March is an excellent month to apply your pre-emergent herbicide to your lawn. I have become a huge fan of barricade herbicide. Over the years I have used many different products and have found that this one gives me the best weed control and has potassium to feed the grass roots as well. One 50 lb. Bag will cover 10,000 sq. ft. As you can see one bag goes a long way, so there is no reason to think that you need to apply this product at a rate heavier than what the bag recommends. Your weed control program needs to be initiated by March 15th so no procrastinating on this one. While on the subject of lawns you may want to consider having a soil test completed. Most lawns would do well having an application of lime applied at this time as well.
As to the subject of shrubbery you need to be pruning your dormant plants (those without foliage) now. Please bear in mind that some summer blooming plants such as Hydrangeas bloom on the previous seasons wood so don’t prune those until after their bloom period is completed. For your evergreen plants I would suggest waiting until the end of the month to prune those to shape. You can begin fertilizing your evergreen plants this month as well. I have always used a complete slow release fertilizer with minor nutrients included; this has allowed me to feed my plants slowly without the worry of over fertilization and the possibility of burning the roots and foliage.
For the vegetable gardeners among us now’s the time to start weeding and preparing the soil for the upcoming veggie season. Compost and/or highly organic soil needs to be added as you are tilling your soil. Hopefully by now you have already been through the catalogs and have your seeds in hand or they are in route. For the folks that like to buy there plants in small sizes for immediate planting wait until the end of March to purchase them. You know the old wives tale not planting until Good Friday just before Easter. Wives tale or not this has served me quite well for a lot of years.
These are just a few of my favorite things, I’m sure with a little imagination your list will be boundless.
Weekend Gardener,
Mike Wilson