The month of renewal
MARCH is a time of rebirth, renewal and return. Of course, it’s the month when avian migration really starts to click into gear, with the return of many of our summer migrant species. It’s also a time of year for intense growth in the plant kingdom and this can be particularly apparent in your own garden as the greys and browns of winter are gradually replaced with fresh, vibrant greens.
Even though snow and frost can of course persist throughout this month, particularly further north, there can be no stopping that surge of new life taking place below the soil and inside the stems of perennial plants, shrubs and trees as the days lengthen. This month is also when many popular springflowering bulbs bloom, so it’s a good time of year to notice any gaps you may have and think ahead to what you could plant come the autumn. If possible, always ponder what might provide the best opportunities for wildlife, but don’t be afraid to think outside the box: I once saw a Hummingbird Hawk-moth nectaring on daffodils in March!
Now is the perfect time to give your garden a bit of a tidyup ahead of the new growing season. Rose bushes can be pruned back now, if you haven’t already done so, taking each stem back to a strong bud lower down. Very leggy or dead stems can be removed altogether. Climbing and rambling roses are better pruned at the end of the growing season – I will cover this in a gardening column later in the year. If you don’t have any roses, this is also the perfect time to plant one! When choosing which variety to go for, I would strongly recommend one of the native species – Rosa canina or Rosa rubiginosa, or similar cultivars. They are just as beautiful as the showier, cultivated specimens but have the distinct advantage in the wildlife garden of producing single blooms (open flowers) meaning bees and other pollinators can easily get in. Big, frilly flowers, while they may look and smell nice, are essentially useless from the perspective of an invertebrate.
Other wildlife-friendly shrubs such as Buddleia, hardy Fuchsia and Perovskia (Russian Sage) can be pruned now as well as ornamental willows, dogwoods and lavenders. When it comes to lavender, don’t be too shy. Some gardening books tell you to never cut into the woodier parts of the stem as they don’t tend to recover, but I have often found this not to be the case – as long as there are signs of some green shoots lower down. If you have several large clumps of lavender, the best thing is to give them a really good haircut with a hedge trimmer or a sharp pair of shears. You can lightly prune them later in the year after flowering, but March is the best time to get them clipped back to a good low structure, ideally around 8-12 inches.
March is also the time when you can really get stuck into sowing and planting, although refer to individual plants and seed packets for exact instructions. If you haven’t already, it’s definitely time to get cracking with sowing the likes of sweet peas and tomatoes indoors – even a sunny windowsill will do!
The star species to look out for this month has to be Brimstone butterfly. One of around half a dozen species of butterfly which regularly spends the winter months hibernating as an adult, it is the male Brimstone that will often be seen by many of us on that first mild and sunny day in March, its bright, sulphur colour thought to be the origin of the ‘butter’ in butterfly. A good way to convince the species to stay in your garden is to plant some Buckthorn or Alder Buckthorn, on which the females will lay their eggs.