March Gardening Tips for the South

March is a bridge month in the garden. Some activities must be completed before month's end; others are just revving up. Here's help prioritizing your spring chores.

Do It Now

• Sow sugar snap peas before the necessary cool weather disappears. Remember to provide support for vines.
• In upper regions of the South, you can still apply a dormant spray to fruit trees until about midmonth. After that point, dilute the solution concentration by half if you spray. Follow label directions carefully.
• Divide clump-forming, spring-blooming shrubs before flowers or leaves appear. Candidates include Japanese kerria, forsythia, and winter honeysuckle. Cut plants back to about 4 inches before digging clumps.
• Finish pruning evergreens early in the month. Cut to shape and control plant size.

Prepare for Upcoming Chores

• Azaleas make the biggest impact when grouped by color. Mark flower colors as azaleas come into bloom. Dig and shift shrubs during or after bloom time.
• Wait to prune spring-blooming shrubs and trees until after flowering.
• Finish pruning summer-flowering plants that form blooms on new growth, like butterfly bush or rose of Sharon.
• Let self-sowing plants set and drop seed. This includes bachelor?s button, calendula, larkspur, and forget-me-not.

Test Garden Tip: Fill bird feeders and clean birdhouses to offer room and board to returning migratory species. Feeders can stage a fascinating show as birds wing their way north to summer breeding grounds.

March is a bridge month in the garden. Some activities must be completed before month's end; others are just revving up. Here's help prioritizing your spring chores.

Do It Now

• Sow sugar snap peas before the necessary cool weather disappears. Remember to provide support for vines.
• In upper regions of the South, you can still apply a dormant spray to fruit trees until about midmonth. After that point, dilute the solution concentration by half if you spray. Follow label directions carefully.
• Divide clump-forming, spring-blooming shrubs before flowers or leaves appear. Candidates include Japanese kerria, forsythia, and winter honeysuckle. Cut plants back to about 4 inches before digging clumps.
• Finish pruning evergreens early in the month. Cut to shape and control plant size.

Prepare for Upcoming Chores

• Azaleas make the biggest impact when grouped by color. Mark flower colors as azaleas come into bloom. Dig and shift shrubs during or after bloom time.
• Wait to prune spring-blooming shrubs and trees until after flowering.
• Finish pruning summer-flowering plants that form blooms on new growth, like butterfly bush or rose of Sharon.
• Let self-sowing plants set and drop seed. This includes bachelor's button, calendula, larkspur, and forget-me-not.

Test Garden Tip: Fill bird feeders and clean birdhouses to offer room and board to returning migratory species. Feeders can stage a fascinating show as birds wing their way north to summer breeding grounds.

Deal with blooming plants now to ensure a season-long parade of cheery blossoms.

Wake Up Roses

Clean up rose beds, removing any fallen leaves from last season. Refresh mulch around roses. Feed plants with a slow-release rose fertilizer. As new leaves emerge, start weekly sprays for black spot. Double-check irrigation systems to ensure all is working fine.

Find the easiest roses to grow.

Plan for Color

• Shop now for summer- and fall-flowering perennials. Eye-catching bloomers include purple coneflower, coreopsis, and hardy hibiscus for summer color. Try Mexican bush sage (a tender perennial in much of the South), autumn sedums, and asters for fall blooms.
• Daylilies start flowering this month. To ensure you get the exact color you want, visit nurseries and purchase plants in bloom.
• Tuck tender bulbs, such as dahlias, tuberous begonias, and gladiolas, into the garden this month. If you can't get enough glads, plant some weekly until mid-June to ensure a season-long show.

Consider a perennial cutting garden.

Use our free planner to design a garden.

Test Garden Tip: Pinch growing tips of sweet peas and garden mums when seedlings reach 4 inches high. This pinch increases branching, which ultimately increases flower number.

Salad crops: Direct-sow leaf lettuce and spinach as soon as soil is ready and workable. Make weekly plantings this month and next to ensure a long harvest season.

Learn more about succession planting.

Warm-season crops: In all but the coldest parts of the South, direct-sow seeds of beans, cucumber, okra, melons, and squash. In the same areas, set out transplants of eggplants, peppers, and tomatoes. Keep frost protection handy, and use it as needed. Wait until next month to plant these crops in the northern reaches of the region.

Get your tomatoes off to a good start.

Start a vegetable garden.

Perennial vegetables: Plant roots of perennial veggies, such as rhubarb, asparagus, and horseradish.

Berries: March is a great time to plant berry crops. This list includes strawberries, blueberries, boysenberries, currants, and grapes.

Citrus: In the warmest part of the South, plant citrus trees this month. Fertilize established trees with a citrus-specific product. Continue harvesting oranges such as Valencia.

Learn more about growing citrus.

Test Garden Tip: Convert vegetable garden paths to weed-free zones by covering paths with newspaper or cardboard topped with pine straw, grass clippings, or chopped leaves.

• Fertilize Bermudagrass and Zoysiagrass lawns that were overseeded for winter. If you didn't overseed warm-season turf, don't fertilize it now. Also, don't fertilize St. Augustinegrass or centipedegrass yet.
• Grubs become active this month and feast on grass before molting. Check with your local extension office to learn which treatments work best in your area this time of year.
• Get the jump on crabgrass and goosegrass by applying a preemergent herbicide. Time applications to coincide with forsythia flowering.

Check out our lawn-fertilizer calculator.

Manage Groundcovers

• If you didn't get to it last month, trim mondograss and liriope before new growth appears. Use a lawn mower adjusted to the highest setting. Add a grass-catcher attachment to eliminate raking.
• Cut English ivy back hard. When new growth emerges in spring, it will be strong and healthy.
  

Refresh the Water Garden

• Clean debris and muck from the water garden, adding it to your compost pile.
• Divide and fertilize water lilies.
• Feed fish when the water temperature hits 50 degrees F.

Learn more about water-garden care.

Check out these water garden ideas.

Test Garden Tip: Gather and dispose of fallen camellia blooms to prevent blight from developing and spreading.