STIHL GB | STIHL March Garden Guide with Jane Moore | March Gardening Jobs | Pruning Roses | STIHL GB @STIHLGB | Uploaded March 2023 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
Not sure what jobs to do in your garden in March? Award-winning gardener and author Jane Moore takes you through the important gardening jobs for March in the first video in a new series on the STIHL GB YouTube channel.
🔶 Splitting Plants
You can increase the number of snowdrops in your garden by splitting and dividing them. Snowdrops are one of those bulbs that is best planted when it’s actually growing, rather than as a dry bulb like daffodils and tulips. You can do this when the plants have finished flowering or anytime while they’re actively growing. Splitting plants is easy, gently dig up a clump and tease them apart, then replant the smaller clumps at the same depth.
March is the perfect time for splitting and dividing a variety of plants which can help rejuvenate them. Lots of perennials like Irises, Sedum or Ice Plant, Asters, in fact nearly every perennial, can be divided now to make more plants.
The traditional method is to use a pair of forks, and that’s ideal if you’re worried about a precious plant because it causes the least amount of damage to the roots. But you can also use a spade to chop them up. Then just replant them where you want or pot them up to give away and water them in to settle the soil around the roots nicely.
🔶 Wildlife Watch
Plants aren’t the only things bursting into life in March. Birds in gardens are busy coming and going with nesting material.
It’s just as important to feed the birds now in the spring as it was in winter. Feeding birds should encourage them to nest close by and providing food is a good way to keep them coming back to your garden all the time.
🔶 Pruning Dogwood
People always say that they find pruning really difficult. You’ve got all these stems and twigs and you just don’t know which ones you want to keep. Some plants are easier than others so let’s start with Cornus or Dogwood, which is the easiest of them all.
Dogwoods are grown especially for their coloured stems in winter, but once they’ve established you need to prune dogwoods hard to keep those colourful stems coming. Prune the stems back to a framework or ‘stool’ at the base now when they’re just starting to shoot. You don’t want all that lovely energy going into the tips when you’re going to then cut it off.
🔶 Pruning Roses
If you’re looking for advice on how to prune roses, follow these few simple rules and you won’t go wrong.
Look at your plant closely. Are there any dead diseased or damaged stems? We call them the 3 Ds. These 3 Ds rules apply to any pruning – whether it’s fruit bushes, climbers or shrubs like Hydrangea, or this rose.
Look out for brown dead stems, or ones with wounds on them, spots and signs of disease and dieback too and any that are crossing over each other and rubbing. If there are any, then cut them back to healthy growth.
Next, look at the shape of the plant – if it’s a shrub then you’re aiming for a goblet shape. Cut the main stems down by half and get rid of any little sprigs and twigs completely, as demonstrated by Jane in the video.
Finally, take some of the stems that are growing into the middle out, to open it up so the air and sunlight can get into the middle of the plant.
🔶 Preparing a Garden Bed for spring
Spring is the ideal time for a quick weed through and tidy up in the garden beds too. The weeds are already germinating so it’s a good time to stop them before they really start growing and it’s good to give the soil a bit of nurturing too.
After winter the soil is often hard and packed from the wet and cold so ‘tickle’ up this compacted soil gently with a fork to break that crusty layer. This makes the surface more permeable so the spring rains can penetrate and get to the roots rather than just running off the surface.
🔶 Get inspired by Jane’s Garden
Plants include:
• Snowdrops: rhs.org.uk/plants/snowdrops
• Narcissus 'Tête-à-tête’: rhs.org.uk/plants/89723/narcissus-t-234%253Bte-224%253B-t-234%253Bte-(12)/details
• Blue aster ‘King George’: Aster amellus 'King George'|Italian aster 'King George'/RHS Gardening
• Dogwood: rhs.org.uk/plants/cornus
• Roses: rhs.org.uk/plants/roses
Jane’s recycled bird feeder is from Singing Friend: Yara - SingingFriend
singingfriend.com/en/products/yara
Let us know if you have any questions in the comments. And don’t forget, this is the first in a series of monthly gardening jobs videos, so subscribe to the STIHL GB channel for more ideas in April.
🔶 STIHL Website: stihl.co.uk
🔶 Like us on Facebook: facebook.com/stihlgb
🔶 Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/stihl_gb
🔶 Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/stihlgb
#STIHL #STIHLGB #MarchGardenGuide #GardenGuide #SplittingPlants #PruningRoses #SplittingSnowdrops #JaneMoore #PruningDogwood
Not sure what jobs to do in your garden in March? Award-winning gardener and author Jane Moore takes you through the important gardening jobs for March in the first video in a new series on the STIHL GB YouTube channel.
🔶 Splitting Plants
You can increase the number of snowdrops in your garden by splitting and dividing them. Snowdrops are one of those bulbs that is best planted when it’s actually growing, rather than as a dry bulb like daffodils and tulips. You can do this when the plants have finished flowering or anytime while they’re actively growing. Splitting plants is easy, gently dig up a clump and tease them apart, then replant the smaller clumps at the same depth.
March is the perfect time for splitting and dividing a variety of plants which can help rejuvenate them. Lots of perennials like Irises, Sedum or Ice Plant, Asters, in fact nearly every perennial, can be divided now to make more plants.
The traditional method is to use a pair of forks, and that’s ideal if you’re worried about a precious plant because it causes the least amount of damage to the roots. But you can also use a spade to chop them up. Then just replant them where you want or pot them up to give away and water them in to settle the soil around the roots nicely.
🔶 Wildlife Watch
Plants aren’t the only things bursting into life in March. Birds in gardens are busy coming and going with nesting material.
It’s just as important to feed the birds now in the spring as it was in winter. Feeding birds should encourage them to nest close by and providing food is a good way to keep them coming back to your garden all the time.
🔶 Pruning Dogwood
People always say that they find pruning really difficult. You’ve got all these stems and twigs and you just don’t know which ones you want to keep. Some plants are easier than others so let’s start with Cornus or Dogwood, which is the easiest of them all.
Dogwoods are grown especially for their coloured stems in winter, but once they’ve established you need to prune dogwoods hard to keep those colourful stems coming. Prune the stems back to a framework or ‘stool’ at the base now when they’re just starting to shoot. You don’t want all that lovely energy going into the tips when you’re going to then cut it off.
🔶 Pruning Roses
If you’re looking for advice on how to prune roses, follow these few simple rules and you won’t go wrong.
Look at your plant closely. Are there any dead diseased or damaged stems? We call them the 3 Ds. These 3 Ds rules apply to any pruning – whether it’s fruit bushes, climbers or shrubs like Hydrangea, or this rose.
Look out for brown dead stems, or ones with wounds on them, spots and signs of disease and dieback too and any that are crossing over each other and rubbing. If there are any, then cut them back to healthy growth.
Next, look at the shape of the plant – if it’s a shrub then you’re aiming for a goblet shape. Cut the main stems down by half and get rid of any little sprigs and twigs completely, as demonstrated by Jane in the video.
Finally, take some of the stems that are growing into the middle out, to open it up so the air and sunlight can get into the middle of the plant.
🔶 Preparing a Garden Bed for spring
Spring is the ideal time for a quick weed through and tidy up in the garden beds too. The weeds are already germinating so it’s a good time to stop them before they really start growing and it’s good to give the soil a bit of nurturing too.
After winter the soil is often hard and packed from the wet and cold so ‘tickle’ up this compacted soil gently with a fork to break that crusty layer. This makes the surface more permeable so the spring rains can penetrate and get to the roots rather than just running off the surface.
🔶 Get inspired by Jane’s Garden
Plants include:
• Snowdrops: rhs.org.uk/plants/snowdrops
• Narcissus 'Tête-à-tête’: rhs.org.uk/plants/89723/narcissus-t-234%253Bte-224%253B-t-234%253Bte-(12)/details
• Blue aster ‘King George’: Aster amellus 'King George'|Italian aster 'King George'/RHS Gardening
• Dogwood: rhs.org.uk/plants/cornus
• Roses: rhs.org.uk/plants/roses
Jane’s recycled bird feeder is from Singing Friend: Yara - SingingFriend
singingfriend.com/en/products/yara
Let us know if you have any questions in the comments. And don’t forget, this is the first in a series of monthly gardening jobs videos, so subscribe to the STIHL GB channel for more ideas in April.
🔶 STIHL Website: stihl.co.uk
🔶 Like us on Facebook: facebook.com/stihlgb
🔶 Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/stihl_gb
🔶 Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/stihlgb
#STIHL #STIHLGB #MarchGardenGuide #GardenGuide #SplittingPlants #PruningRoses #SplittingSnowdrops #JaneMoore #PruningDogwood
