Gardeners' notes - jobs to do in March
Revive your lawn
You can start mowing your lawn again if the weather conditions are agreeable; once it’s around 7cm high, choose a dry day and keep blades high to avoid doing damage to young growth and to help the grass withstand competition from any weeds in the soil.
Trim or replace lawn edges too, to instantly make your garden look neater - either use a half-moon edger to tidy the long grass and scruffy edges, or lift sections of turf and rotate them to provide a fresh edge with healthy growth. Firm this in, packing soil around to make it level. Add more soil and a sprinkle of lawn seed to any gaps and water in, along with the replacement turf.
Pruning buddleja
Buddleja davidii, or the butterfly bush, is best pruned in early spring, so it’s time to pull out a sharp saw or some loppers and reduce this shrub down to a manageable size before it starts into fresh growth.
Buddleja can be cut back hard, to about 50-100 cm from its base. Cuts should be made just above a dormant bud or shoot and you can go right into the old, woody branches. Compact buddlejas receive similar treatment: shorten the previous season’s growth back to around 30-60 cm from the ground.
They will respond by producing lots of new stems which will flower later in the year, producing those long, honey-scented sprays of flowers which are so attractive to butterflies and other insects.
Move perennials
Remember those gaps in the borders you spotted back in autumn? Or the over-enthusiastic geranium which threatened to swamp everything in its path? Now is a great time to move perennials around or divide any which have become too big for their space, such as asters, helenium, Japanese anemones or sedums.
They’re just starting back into growth, which means they’ll quickly make new roots and you won’t risk compromising bud or flower development. The soil is beginning to warm, too and should still contain a good deal of moisture, so that any new or divided plants will be able to establish well before summer.
To move or divide a perennial plant it’s a case of slipping a fork underneath the plant and gradually loosening the roots until it comes up, or digging a circle around the plant with a spade and levering it from the ground. Depending on the plant and the density of its roots, you can use your hands, a sharp knife, the edge of your spade or two forks to pull it apart into smaller sections.
Replant the divisions elsewhere, filling gaps and providing repetition and a nice, cohesive feel to your garden. Alternatively, gift the new plants to friends and family. Make sure the new plants are watered regularly until they’re established.
