March Garden Diary

A quick recap of the month before it goes sailing over the horizon. March 2022  has been dry and mild in the main and we have recently enjoyed a fool's spring, basking in a most settled long spell of above average temperatures, blue skies and sunshine. That came to an abrupt end with some dramatic torrential rain on Tuesday evening since when the temperature has absolutely plummeted. The month is ending with a cold but most seasonal snap.

Various distractions have meant that I've not achieved a lot in the garden other than seed sowing in the greenhouse and continuing to plant up the dedicated snowdrop border, where I'm beginning to run out out of room for further snowdrops.  I have been making sure to regularly water new additions and the established bulbs have had a seaweed feed.

A few more new plants have arrived in the shape of yet another pulmonaria 'Miss Elly', phlox 'Blue Paradise', epimediums 'Domino' and youngianum  'Niveum' and viola odorata 'Konigen Charlotte'. I'm looking forward to seeing all of these in flower. I've also had a delivery of dahlia tubers which now need starting off.

I've not sown any vegetable seeds yet but there is plenty of time left to do that. Shallot bulbs 'Red Sun' have been planted in cells in the greenhouse and will be transferred to the ground when they have made some growth.

I've made the difficult decision to sow fewer seeds this year but whether I stick to that remains to be seen.  It's a decision largely influenced by the fact that I have developed osteoarthritis in my left hand, which ironically is not the hand that sustained two breaks a couple of years ago or so. I think that I need to ease the burden on my hands as I get older and sadly lugging seed trays back and forth adds to the workload. The special snowdrop pots have been turfed out of the greenhouse into the outer world, the sand bench has been turned on and seed sowing has been going on since the start of March. 

To date I've sown panicum capillare 'Sparkling Fountain', lagurus ovatus (my own saved seed for these first two), larkspur 'Misty Lavender' (all of eight seedlings as of today), salvia viridis 'Blue Monday', two batches of sweet peas, ' papaver rhoeas 'Amazing Grey', more rudbeckia 'Sahara', phlox paniculata 'Isabellina' and 'Cherry Caramel', amaranthus caudatus 'viridis', cosmos 'Apricotta' and scabious 'Fata Morgana'. I've been mostly happy with germination rates with the exception of the poppy, larkspur (although the packet carried a warning that germination had been low in tests so there was a larger quantity of seeds included in the packet to compensate) and the phlox 'Cherry Caramel', which hasn't germinated at all so a second sowing has been made from a different packet. I will also sow more larkspur and poppy. The only perennial sown to date is heliopsis 'Bleeding Hearts' which is a new one on me. The seedlings from September sowings - orlaya grandiflora, ammi visnaga, perennial scabious, calendula and daucus carrota have been pricked out and potted up. Sadly all the puny snapdragons went by the wayside over the winter. April will see a few further flower sowings. 

Anemone 'Mr Fokker' is now in flower from November planting but those that were planted this February have gone mouldy in their pots. However I'm delighted that six of ten ranunculus 'Champagne' planted in a tray in February have healthy green shoots and need potting up soon.

So that in a nutshell was March in my garden. A month especially memorable for it's unexpected weather and an unbelievable sudden woooooosh of growth, the return of our resident ducks and for the pleasure gained from sticking my head over the stream to to gaze upon  labours of my guerilla gardening. When we moved here there were already clumps of snowdrops and some native daffodils growing on the other bank, which is nor owned by us but isn't maintained by anybody. I have slowly lobbed bulbs over to that side over the years. Numbers have depended on my finances and Wilko's sales at the end of the planting season. More yellow patches and the odd white are spreading slowly but surely with each passing year, with no attention from human hand whatsoever.