March Garden Calendar

Please show me by a raise of hands how many of you are tired of cold temperatures, shoveling snow, and being cooped up indoors?  Me too!  Well warm temperatures, sweltering heat, and sunburns will soon be upon us.  I think?
In the meantime, here is a list of things that you can do to prepare for spring:

• Attend pruning classes for roses, fruit trees, trees and shrubs at the Ogden Botanical Gardens, or USU Botanical Center in Kaysville.   Dates, times, locations are available at http://ogdenbotanicalgardens.org/htm/calendar/displayBy=next10/
• Start seeds indoors in a sunny, warm location for a jumpstart on the season.

•  Sharpen pruning equipment and get ready to prune.
• Sharpen shovels and other equipment to prepare for spring gardening.
• Plant peas in the garden as soon as the snow is off the ground.
• Fertilize fruit trees with nitrogen.



Clean up the yard when the weather is nice.

• Purchase seeds from your favorite nursery or garden center early—before your favorites are all sold out.
• Work organic material into annual beds as soon as they are dry enough to be worked.
• Plant hardy vegetables (peas, onions, radishes, spinach, broccoli, turnips, rhubarb)

 

• Plant bare-root plants (strawberries, raspberries, fruit trees, roses) 
• Purchase an herbicide to prevent crabgrass and spurge to apply the first of April.
• Consider applying a lawn pre-emergent earlier to areas next to sidewalks and driveways where it warms and breaks dormancy sooner.
• Prune fruit trees, raspberries, grapes and ornamentals that need it.

Apple and peach tree buds showing a little color. Look for color in the buds when you apply dormant oil.

• Apply dormant oil to all fruit trees as soon as the buds swell and the first tip of color appears.  Include an insecticide with the oil, if desired.
• Prune roses after the buds break and there is 1 to 2 inches of growth.
• Clean up perennials by removing last years’ dead material, and transplant or divide those that are overgrown.
• Plant pansies and primrose for color in the garden, if you didn’t plant them last fall.