March Hints & Tips

• Plug Plants & Seedlings
• Construct or Modify Rock Gardens
• Rejuvenate Houseplants
• Stem Colour
• Herbs
• Seed Sowing
• Greenhouse
• Pest Watch
• Roses
• Pond Care
• Feeding Plants
• Questions & Answers

Plug Plants & Seedlings

Buy your bedding and patio plug plants and seedlings now for growing on - and you'll have your biggest and best bedding displays ever. We have a wide range of varieties, including all your favourites, for potting up and planting out after the frosts, in beds, borders and into containers and baskets. Remember to pick up everything you'll need - including pots, seed trays, labels and compost.

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Construct or Modify Rock Gardens

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Rejuvenate Houseplants

This is the perfect time to rejuvenate your houseplants. Start by re-potting those plants that need bigger pots, and this is the time to start giving all your houseplants a good feed. If you can't remember to feed regularly, controlled-release fertilisers are a great way to simply feed and forget. Pests will be on the increase now so check regularly and deal with any you find. We've got everything you'll need to give them a spring treat - from pots and compost to fertilisers and insecticide sprays. If you're looking to brighten up your home, take a look at the fabulous range of plants we have in our houseplant section.

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Stem Colour

Plants grown for their colourful stems - such as Dogwoods, Rubus and some bush Willows - will produce more intense colours if the stems are cut back hard now. If you want to add a selection of these colourful shrubs to your garden, take a look around our planteria for those you can plant today.

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Herbs

Herbs are not only good to grow for the kitchen - many also have colourful flowers and foliage, so plant some today. They can be planted in a herb bed, mixed in with other plants in beds and borders, or grown in pots on the patio using a John Innes compost, where they'll be handy to pick and provide excellent colour and scent. 

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Seed Sowing

If you have a heated greenhouse or similar warm, light place, then you can get a lot of your bedding plants and vegetables off to a flying start by sowing them now. Take a good look through our seed display to see what can be sown now - and remember you'll need a heated propagator, pots, trays, compost and labels.

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Greenhouse

There's plenty you can be getting on with in the greenhouse now. From sowing seeds of bedding and vegetable plants, to re-potting young plants and cuttings taken last year. Start Canna, Begonia and Dahlia tubers into growth now for earlier blooms. Watch out for pests and fungal diseases and deal with them as early as possible. Remember to stock up with everything you'll need for success this year - pots, trays, compost, labels, feeds and pest controls.

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Pest Watch

As the weather warms up and plants come into growth, pests and diseases will be on the increase. Ensure your plants grow strong and healthy this year and aren't troubled by crippling pests. By making a start now, looking at your plants and dealing with any problems now, you'll prevent them from getting out of control and becoming a real headache later. Slugs, aphids, whitefly, scale insects, red spider mite and numerous diseases may all be waiting to attack new foliage as it grows. We stock an excellent range of pest control products - including organic ones - one of which will be perfect for dealing with these problems. Just ask our friendly team for more help and advice.

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Roses

Give your roses the perfect start to the year. Hybrid Tea, Floribunda and Climbing Roses benefit from pruning during early March. You'll need a pair of strong, quality secateurs and loppers, and good, thorn-proof gloves. After pruning, spray with an insecticide and fungicide to protect against future problems. Then feed with a granular rose fertiliser to ensure a mass of perfect blooms this summer, and mulch with composted bark or well-rotted manure. 

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Pond Care

Keep your pond looking good this year by spending a little time on it now. Check pumps and filters - and replace if necessary, remove pondweed and divide overgrown plants and restock with new plants. If you need any help or advice, just ask one of our friendly team.

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Feeding Plants

All garden plants will benefit from being fed now as they start to come into growth. Use a general granular fertiliser - such as Growmore or Blood, Fish and Bone - or a controlled-release fertiliser for a once-a-year feed.

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Questions & Answers

Growing herbs is on the increase, so what suggestions do we recommend?

If you're a keen cook then you can't beat using herbs that have been freshly picked from the garden. Most herbs come from warm regions of the world, so need to be grown in a sunny position and need a well-drained soil. If you're going to add herbs to mixed beds then look out for the ornamental coloured leaf varieties of Thyme, Marjoram, Sage and Oregano. Rosemary is another excellent choice for these situations. Mint and French Tarragon can be thugs in the garden with their spreading roots, so grow them in a pot on their own or even plant them in a bottomless pot sunk in the ground. Basil and Coriander are very popular these days. Both are annuals that can easily be grown from seed or choose young plants to grow on. Pick the leaves regularly and make sure they don't go to seed
prematurely.  
 
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We're always being asked how to make the most of roses and how to look after them. What advice can we give?

The most popular types are the bush hybrid teas and floribundas and the climbers, all of which will benefit from pruning during early March. When pruning any rose start by cutting out dead, diseased, damaged, rubbing or crossing stems. Then when pruning the remaining stems, try to prune to a bud or new shoot and an outward facing bud although this isn't absolutely essential. For the bush Hybrid Teas and Floribundas prune back the remaining stems by about half to two-thirds. Generally the thinner the stem the harder it should be pruned. There's often confusion over how to prune climbers and ramblers. Climbing roses produce their flowers on side-shoots formed from a permanent framework of branches. After cutting out dead and dying shoots, prune back these side-shoots by about two-thirds.

Ramblers are best pruned in late summer or autumn. Old-fashioned shrub roses and ground cover roses require very little pruning. Simply remove the dead, diseased and dying stems and then trim to shape. After pruning you should always feed with a granular rose fertiliser to ensure a mass of perfect blooms. Mulch the soil with composted bark, well-rotted manure or similar bulky material and to be on the safe side it's a good idea to spray with an insecticide and/or fungicide to protect against any possible future problems.

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We're always being asked how to look after lawns. What timely advice can we give our customers?

Now is the time to get your lawn in shape. The most important factor in having a good lawn is mowing. You should mow whenever the grass is growing and the aim should be to maintain a constant height all year round. If you allow the grass to grow long and then shave it down to the ground it weakens it and this is a sure-fire way of weeds and moss getting out of control. For the average lawn aim to maintain a height of around 1 and a quarter to 1 and a half inches; for ‘bowling green' type lawn aim for a height of three quarters of an inch. The lawn may also be choked by ‘thatch' (dead grass and other debris). At this time of year, scarify the lawn using a spring-tined rake, which will lift out all the rubbish and help the grass to grow much more strongly.

If you have a large lawn it may be better to buy or hire a powered scarifier. If the grass is thin and weak and you have a heavy clay soil it pays to aerate it. You can do this with a garden fork - pushing the fork in to the depth of its tines or, where soil compaction is a real problem, use a hollow-tine aerator. After aerating apply a lawn soil top dressing. You can buy ready-made dressings or make your own from equal parts peat and sharp sand. The next thing to do is feed, as this strengthens the grass and makes it thicker, which helps to prevent weeds and moss getting a hold. At this time of year use a granular feed, and where weeds are a problem use a weed and feed, or where there's moss go for a weed, feed and mosskiller. If weeds are a serious problem you may get better results by using a liquid spray-on lawn weedkiller. If you want a lawn to be proud of then all the effort is really worth it.

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Lots of our customers have asked for advice on how to care for plug plants and young seedlings once they get home. What do we suggest?

You need to have the right conditions for the plants to grow on in. That means good light and a temperature of around 10-12°C, so you'll either need a heated greenhouse, conservatory or good-sized windowsill that gets plenty of indirect sunlight, but not scorching direct sunlight. The plug plants should be watered well first and then potted up individually into small pots - 3-4" in diameter is usually a good size - using either a peat-based or peat substitute compost. After planting up, water the compost well and then water regularly to keep it evenly moist.

When handling seedlings always hold them by a leaf and use a dibber to carefully tease the roots out of the pots. The compost in the pot should be watered well first, then prick them out into seed trays spacing them an inch or so apart or, into cell trays, one plant per cell. Make sure you prick them out so that the lower leaf is in contact with the compost. Water well to settle them in and, like the plug plants, keep the compost evenly moist. Keep the plants growing well and, if necessary, pot them up into larger pots if they start to become rootbound. The compost will have enough food in it for about six weeks, after that you'll need to feed with a liquid fertiliser. They can be planted outside after the fear of frosts in late spring or early summer.

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Many customers have asked what if anything, they should be doing for their houseplants now. What do we recommend?

After the winter many houseplants will need a spring treat to get them back into full health. As the days are getting longer, plants will start to actively grow again so most of them will need more water than they needed in winter. Always make sure you use tepid water, as cold water can be a shock to plants. They'll also need a good feeding with a fertiliser - one high in potash for flowering plants and one with a balanced mix of nutrients for foliage ones. You can either use a liquid fertiliser and feed every 10-14 days from spring to autumn or, use controlled-release fertiliser. These can last for anything up to six months and are a great way to simply feed and forget. Keep a look out for pests; they tend to hide on the underside of leaves. Deal with any you find either by spraying them with an insecticide or, if you prefer, add an insecticide to the compost.

Some gardeners think that the best way of improving sickly plants is to repot them. Actually this can lead to even more problems. Many flowering houseplants will flower better if they are potbound so be sure that repotting is essential before attempting it. Finally, clean the leaves to remove any build-up of dust or grime, although this shouldn't be done for plants that have furry or hairy leaves. Cleaning is best done with a damp sponge.

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