March is such a busy month in the garden and unless there is a bout of freezing weather there are lots of jobs to get on with. Below are some of them...
The first, unless I have already done this (usually from mid to end of February), I tackle all the clematis in Groups 2 & 3.
In the case of group 2, the early flowering clematis, you can cut back all the untidy dead top growth but otherwise and tie in the clematis if needed.
For group 3 clematis, cut down to about 12-18 inches from the ground to a nice new bud.
Having hopefully completed all pruning of the climbing roses I now finish off all the other roses in the garden and then give them all a scattering of rose feed and some well rotted manure around the base of the plant.
The next job is the deciduous grasses which I like to do by early March or even end of February. Having given a fabulous display and structure to the garden over winter they are now looking really messy and you want to cut them down BEFORE the lovely new growth starts. This is easy if you do it early enough as they can be sheared to about 6-12 inches from the ground. If you leave it until the end of the month I find it more fiddly as the new growth has started and you definitely don't want to cut that off!
Many ferns are evergreen and just need tidying up by taking out any dead or broken and unsightly fronds but the deciduous ferns will need a bit more attention. Ferns such as Dryopteris will now be looking very messy and a lot of the fronds will have collapsed so now is a good time to clear and cut these back just before the tiny new curled growth will be just starting to unfurl and by clearing this now more light will get to it.
Another important and quite satisfying job is to split and divide perennials. Now is the perfect time to divide later summer flowering perennials such as sedum, asters and crocosmia. The early summer flowering perennials such as campanulas and geraniums are better done in autumn. Once the hellebores are finished flowering any clumps that have got too large can be divided and spread about the garden- free plants!
After all these jobs are done its time for weeding weeding weeding........
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