 All About March: In the Northern Hemisphere, the agricultural year begins in March with the spring equinox, so called because the hours of daylight equal in length the hours of night ("equinox" = equal + night). March was the first month in the ancient Roman calendar, dedicated to Mars, the Roman god of war, possibly because in Roman times, this was the first season of the year when weather permitted the military campaigns that Roman economy depended upon to be waged in earnest. Possibly for similar reasons, the Germanic tribes who overran the British Isles, the Angles and the Saxons, called the last week of our February and the first three weeks of our March Hreth-monath, after their goddess Hretha (her name meant “fame” or “glory”), whom they ritually sacrificed during this period. And at the spring equinox around the 21st of March, Eostur-monath began, dedicated to the spring goddess Eostre (from whose name we get the name of the Christian feast “Easter”, with its fertility symbols of Easter eggs and bunnies).
Now here’s what to do in your Northern New Mexico garden in March.
(Many thanks to various County Agricultural Extension Services, to Charlie Nardozzi, Horticulturist, of the National Gardening Association, and to Dr. Leonard Perry of the University of Vermont Extension Department of Plant and Soil Science, for some of the material in the sections that follow.)
MARCH ANNUALS & BIENNIALS
 Payne's pansies are growing like mad in our greenhouses this month! Annual (first year blooming) and biennial (second year blooming) flowers to start from seed this month include: sweet alyssum (Lobularia), nemesias, pansies (Viola), petunias, snapdragons (Antirrhinum), toadflax (Linaria) and verbenas. Or let Payne's provide you with these beauties! Visit this page regularly for updates on which annuals are ready for sale at our North and South stores.
MARCH BULBS, CORMS, & TUBERS
 Just In: Payne's 2010 crop of summer-blooming bulbs, including acidantheras, begonias, calla lilies, crocosmias, dahlias, gladioli, Oriental lilies, and tigridias. Speaking of which, if you dug up your frost-tender summer bulbs this past fall and stored them between newspaper in a cool, dry, place for the winter, now's the time to inspect them for signs of shriveling or rot. If in doubt, throw ‘em into the compost heap. Now's also the month to remove from the cold and bring into the warmth any bulbs you potted up for forcing last fall.
MARCH COMPOSTING
Turn that pile!
MARCH CONTAINERS
See “What To Do In February” by clicking here.
MARCH EQUIPMENT
Waste Not, Want Not:
- Save all those large translucent plastic soft drink and milk jugs! With an opening cut in their bases, they make great cloches or hot caps for protecting young transplants from the cold.
- Save your egg cartons and rectangular milk cartons, too: they make great little seed-starting units. To convert rectangular milk cartons to seed-starters, lay them on their sides lengthwise and cut off their long upper side; then fill them with a sterile seed-starting mix. Punch some holes in their bottom length for drainage.
- Save your two-pound metal coffee cans; come the hot weather, they can be placed under melons, watermelons, pumpkins, and winter squashes to lift them off the ground as they ripen, helping to ensure even maturation and discourage damage from soil-borne fungus diseases and soil-crawling insect pests.
- And come full planting season, newspapers, brown paper bags, burlap, and old carpet remnants make great mulch around new transplants to keep down weeds, and you can always cover them with decorative bark if they make your yard look too ugly. (Don’t use the glossy colored inserts in your newspapers; their inks can leak toxins into the soil.)
- Old wooden windows make good cold frames.
- Chicken wire cylinders are great for pea supports. Old window screens make great drying racks.
Now is also a good time to sharpen your shovels and hoes. Oil the moving parts of your pruning shears. Sharpen the blades of your rotary lawn mower. Take your gas-powered lawn mower to the dealer for a tune-up. Check your stock of seed-starting supplies, fertilizers, and soil amendments and replenish what you’re low on.
Make a cold frame to use in hardening off seedlings. You can make one easily using hay or straw bales and old windows, glass storm doors, or wooden frames stapled with a triple thickness of heavy mil transparent plastic. Arrange the hay bales in a rectangle, then place the windows or frames over the top.
MARCH FERTILIZING & MULCHING
Resist the temptation to remove the mulch from your beds. Sometimes spring warming spells can turn on a dime into frigid rain, sleet and snow, and the purpose of mulch is to protect plant roots from the damage caused by unseasonable thawing and freezing.
MARCH GRASSES & LAWNS
Don’t cut back those ornamental grasses yet. Wait till the end of the month or the middle of next month to do it. And don’t sow your grass seed yet! Wait till the 1st of April to sow seeds of cool season grasses, and the 1st of May to sow seeds of warm season grasses.
MARCH GREENHOUSE
If you haven't done so already, clean every exposed surface in your greenhouse with hot, soapy water, rinse thoroughly, and allow to air-dry completely. Do the same for all your pots, pans, containers, and greenhouse tools. Consider also spraying all your greenhouse surfaces with a fungicide, such as natural Neem Oil spray (available at Payne's). This will help cut down on fungus infections as you get your new season's seedlings and cuttings going!
MARCH HERBS
Start the seeds of biennial and perennial herbs under lights indoors this month. Varieties to plant now include angelica, chives, dill, garlic chives, lovage, oregano, parsley, rosemary, sage, savory, and thyme.
MARCH HOUSEPLANTS & TROPICALS
Begin fertilizing your houseplants once you notice new growth starting. If you fertilize with a water soluble or liquid fertilizer at every watering, use half the recommended application rate) or monthly at the regular recommended rate.
 If you grow your houseplants for their flowers, be sure the plant food you’re using is a bloom fertilizer, with sufficient amounts of phosphorus (the middle number on the fertilizer label), which plants need to produce flowers. Many folks like Miracle-Gro™ fertilizer, but complain that the regular Miracle-Gro™ produces lots of foliage and few flowers. That’s because regular Miracle-Gro™ has high levels of nitrogen (the first number on the fertilizer label) and relatively low levels of phosphorus. If you’re a Miracle-Gro™ fan, use the Miracle-Gro™ bloom fertilizer for your flowering plants and the regular Miracle-Gro™ for your foliage plants.
Or avoid the hassle of liquid fertilizers by using a time-release granular fertilizer for your houseplants. Osmocote™ is a favorite. It comes in two formulations with misleading labels, one labeled in pink and one labeled in green. Though both formulations show lots of flowers on their labels, in fact Osmocote™ in the pink label has higher nitrogen than phosphorus and is better used for foliage plants. Osmocote™ in the green label has equal amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium and is the one to use for flowering plants. One application lasts 3 to 4 months, the plant food being released to the plant’s roots every time you water.
Many houseplants can be propagated from cuttings starting this month. Here’s how you do it.
- Scrub a pot with hot soapy water, rinse with hot water, and allow it to air dry.
- Fill the pot with a sterile soilless potting mix that you have moistened to the consistency of a wrung-out sponge.
- Take a sharp knife, dip it into rubbing alcohol, and cut off the top 3-4” of a healthy houseplant stem tip or side stem. Make sure the stem has two or three pairs of leaves on it. Make as many cuttings as you want to grow into new plants.
- Remove the bottom pair of leaves from each cutting.
- Dip a pencil into the rubbing alcohol, and make holes 1” apart in the potting mix. Make sure each hole is wider than the stems of the cuttings you have taken from the parent plant.
- Dip the end of each cutting into hormone rooting powder (available at Payne's!) and insert your cuttings into the holes you made in the damp potting mix. Make sure you do not rub off the powder as you insert the cuttings into their holes.
- When each cutting has been inserted, use your fingers to press the sides of its hole together until the soil has come into contact with the cutting’s stem.
- Water in the cuttings, and place the pot holding the cuttings into a warm (65-70ºF) location that is out of the way of cold nighttime drafts.
- Keep the soil in the pot just moist. In about 4 weeks the cuttings should have rooted and will be ready to transplant into individual 4” pots for growing on.
MARCH PERENNIALS
Check your perennial beds for signs of frost heaving. If you find roots exposed by our weird hot-and-cold weather, cover them with extra mulch and press down gently. Don’t fertilize and cut back your perennials until the end of month. There’s likely to be more cold weather to come before we’re through with winter, and cutting the plants back or fertilizing them prematurely could force them to sprout prematurely, only to be zapped by a freeze. For a list of favorite perennials for Northern New Mexico gardens, click here.
MARCH PESTS & DISEASES
As soon as possible, hit your fruit trees and evergreens with horticultural oil spray to suffocate the eggs of any harmful insects that might have overwintered on tree bark. See the info under "March Shrubs & Trees" below for tips on how to do this. For other seasonal pest and disease control info, see also the articles under “What To Do In February” by clicking here.
MARCH PLANTING & TRANSPLANTING
You can still plant or transplant deciduous shrubs and trees this month if the ground in your yard has thawed but buds have not yet begun to swell.For complete instructions on how to plant a tree, click here.
MARCH ROSES
Did you wrap or cylinder your roses last fall to protect them from winter cold? Late this  month, it’ll be time to start gradually taking off their protective gear so they wake up slowly as the warm weather increases. Start by unwrapping the top of the rose bush and work your way slowly down the bush over about a week’s time. Don’t prune out dead-looking stems till early May — stems that look dead in March have been known to sprout new growth later on as the weather warms up.
Reserve your 2010 Payne’s Roses today! We have a great selection due in, including lots of fragrant cultivars and some fabulous climbers. Click here for the complete list. For complete instructions on how to make roses thrive in Northern New Mexico, click here.
MARCH SHRUBS & TREES
Finish pruning fruit trees before buds swell. Treat fruit trees and evergreens this month with horticultural spray oil (available at Payne's!) to suffocate overwintering insect pests and their eggs. Some tips:
- Choose a calm day when temperatures are above 40ºF and follow the directions on the spray label, making sure that you cover all sides of the trunk and branches with the spray.
- WARNING: Horticultural spray oil can harm honeybees, and with honeybee populations all over the country dying off from fungal infections, we need to protect these crucial pollinators as much as possible. So don’t use horticultural spray oil on plants that are flowering.
- And don’t use horticultural oils on blue spruce. While they won’t kill the trees, they’ll strip off the protective waxy coating that diffuses the light and makes them look blue.
Don’t prune spring flowering shrubs such as forsythia, quince, spiraea, and lilacs until  after they’ve blossomed, or you’ll cheat yourself of this year’s blooms. In late March, cut your butterfly bushes (Buddleja) to within 6 inches of the ground. It may feel as though you are committing murder, but the shrubs will grow right back and bear lots more flowers than they would if you didn’t prune them as drastically.
Have you ever forced the branches of flowering shrubs and trees for indoor out-of-season bloom? Late March is the time to try it. Best plants for forcing include budded forsythia, hawthorn (Crataegus), apple, and crabapple. Some tips:
- Be sure the branches have flower-buds formed on them, otherwise you’ll just get leaves. If in doubt, bring in a small cutting with buds on it for us to examine.)
- Cut the branches on a sharp slant using a cutting tool the cutting edges of which have been well-sharpened and dipped in rubbing alcohol to sterilize them.
- Slit the end of each branch.
- Scrape off the outer bark of branches an inch or more in diameter to allow faster water absorption.
- Place the cut branches in a bathtub filled with warm water overnight, then transfer them to water-filled buckets and place in a cool place for a week or two.
- When the flowers begin to open, arrange the branches in water-filled vases and bring them into the living room for the delight of your family.
Trees which you didn’t feed last fall you can deep feed now by punching a series of 1 to 2” holes two feet apart around their drip line and filling the holes with tree food (available at Payne’s). You can also feed shrubs now. If you use dry fertilizers, make sure and water them in thoroughly. Trees also like mulches of well composted poop. You can also plant and transplant deciduous trees and shrubs this month.
MARCH VEGETABLES & FRUITS
 By St. Patrick’s Day (March 17th) it’ll be time to sow seeds of cool-weather vegetables and hardy perennial herbs, such as lettuces, peas, leeks, onions, spinach, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts, parsley, sage, dill, celery leaf, thyme, and oregano. You should also start seeds of artichokes now. The best variety for Zones 6 and colder is ‘Imperial Star F1’, which matures its edible flowers before frost in our area; other artichoke varieties require 2 years to mature.
Most indoor-sown seedlings will need about 6 weeks indoors under lights before they’ll be ready for transplanting outside two weeks before our last frost date (May 15th). Onions and leeks will need 10-12 weeks of indoor growth before they’re planted out. Resist the temptation to start warm-weather crops indoors this month (such as tomatoes, chiles, peppers, and eggplants) unless you have very bright lights and lots of room. You might think you’re getting a jump on the season, but warm-weather crops begun too early can get weak and spindly, and later-sown crops quickly catch up with them.
With cold-tolerant vegetables and herbs, you can take a risk and sow the seeds outdoors in a well-prepared, deeply dug, manured and raked-smooth veggie bed. You can also sow them in large, shallow containers, lug the containers outdoors during the day, and lug them back inside at night (this works particularly well with lettuce and spinach). Or you can start your seedlings indoors in peat or coir pots. Some tips:
- Start fertilizing them with a balanced plant food when they’ve put out two sets of leaves.
- Don’t give them too much nitrogen or they’ll make lots of leggy, weak, disease- and insect-prone growth at the expense of stems and roots. 5-10-5, 10-10-10, or half-strength shots of 20-20-20 fertilizer will work just fine (spray it on the seedlings in the A.M. as well as water it into their growing medium).
- Keep the seedlings just moist and give them the strongest light possible — if using grow lights, keep the seedlings no more than 6 inches away from the tubes at all times, lowering the plants or raising the lights gradually as the seedlings grow taller.
- I like to drape my light units in light reflective mylar sheeting to amplify the brightness my seedlings receive, but beware: it can get pretty hot under there, so vent the mylar-draped light units regularly.)
- Leave the lights on for a minimum of 16 hours per day.
If you prefer to raise cold-weather crops from starts rather than from seed, Payne’s will be offering for sale soon a wide range of vegetable varieties selected by us for our Northern New Mexico conditions. Check our section entitled "What's New At Payne's" for a list of available edibles as we put them up for sale.
Fruit Trees: Fruit trees such as apples, apricots, plums, peaches, and cherries should be sprayed with horticultural oil this month (if you haven’t sprayed them already) when day temps are above 40ºF and wind is calm. Following the directions on product labels, spray trunks and branches on all sides. The oil will suffocate the eggs of insect pests before they hatch to injure your trees and their developing fruit. Also, pull out or cut off any suckers or shoots that may begin to sprout from the bases of your fruit trees. Otherwise, these shoots will rob your trees of the energy they’ll need to ripen fruits. And there’s still time to prune your fruiting trees and shrubs as long as their new growth has not yet begun.
Fruiting Bushes: Near the end of the month you may prune out all of last year’s raspberry and blackberry canes except the canes of everbearing varieties. If you grow currants, remove any trunks that are over 3 years old.
MARCH VINES
Late this month and into April you may prune your flowering vines, such as honeysuckle and wisteria. Cut out any damaged or dead wood, using sharp pruners that have been dipped in rubbing alcohol to sterilize them.
MARCH WATERING
If you haven’t been watering your shrubs and trees thus far this winter, begin doing so as soon as your soil has begun to thaw. Remember that deep watering once or twice a week is much more helpful to the plants than shallow watering several times a week.
MARCH WEEDING
Folks in warm spots, like Albuquerque and Española, will notice this month billions and billions of little weed seedlings coming up in their yards and gardens. Time to hoe them up or pull them by hand! If weeds haven’t started sprouting in your area, consider spreading corn gluten meal, a natural pre-emergent weed inhibitor, over your yard and watering it in. Just remember that it will inhibit all seeds from sprouting in the areas over which you spread it, not just the seeds of weeds — so don’t use it in the vegetable garden or in a flower bed where you encourage your lovelies to self-sow.
MARCH WILDLIFE
Keep feeding those birds! And get out your hummingbird feeders. Scrub them thoroughly with hot soapy water, rinse them very thoroughly, and let them airdry in preparation for the return of the hummers beginning as early as late March in the warmest areas and continuing through April and May.
OTHER PROJECTS FOR MARCH
Talk To Us! Make a list of all your gardening questions to ask our experts, then come by any of our nurseries (click here for directions to our stores) and buttonhole us. Or send in your questions to us by clicking here, and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible with our answers. You can also check out some of the fabulous articles and tips here on our website. Some popular topics include:
- "What roses will Payne's be offering this year?" (To find out, click here.)
- "What can I plant to attract hummingbirds to my Northern New Mexico garden?" (To find out, click here.)
- "How do I plant a tree to ensure it will thrive?" (To find out, click here.)
- "How can I save on my gardening water bills?" (To find out, click here and here.)
- "I've never built a compost heap before. How do I do it?" (To find out, click here.)
- "Where can I find mulches and soil amendments in bulk at a decent price?" (To find out, click here.)
— Compiled and written by Rand B. Lee
Green Thumb Gazette: Did you know we put out a periodic email newsletter, The Green Thumb Gazette, available only by free subscription? And did you know that the GTG includes special offers just for subscribers? Just click here to sign up! (We never share your name or email with anybody. Honest!) And did you know that each week we draw a name from our list of Green Thumb Gazette signer-uppers, and award that lucky person a $25 Payne's Nursery Gift Certificate good towards any purchase at Payne's South, Payne's North, or POSY, Payne's Organic Soil Yard? So if you sign up for our Gazette above, we'll automatically enter your name into our drawings! |
What To Do Now 
