Tend to buds, sprouts and other harbingers of spring
Fter a colder-than-normal February, we look to March for warmer temperatures. This month inaugurates spring’s earliest blooms, tiny new leaves on winter bare branches, and the tiniest sprouts of newly planted summer vegetable seeds.
AVegetable and annual flower gardens
Which seeds can you start now? • Summer veggies such as tomatoes, basil, summer squash, jalapeños, eggplant and more. Start these seeds in containers indoors.
• Start annual herbs and flower seeds, including borage, basil, calendula, sunflowers, marigolds, zinnias and cosmos. Start these seeds in containers indoors.
• Start cilantro, parsley, beet, carrot, turnip and radish seeds directly in the soil.
Prepare garden beds for the next round:
• Start to cycle out winter crops such as lettuces, cabbage, spinach and broccoli.
• If you planted cover crops, cut them at the base. Let the roots decompose in place. Layer the tops over the soil as mulch. They’ll soon decompose, too.
• Top beds off with fresh compost (NOT planting mix or potting mix), worm castings and organic vegetable fertilizer. Water well to settle them in.
• Test and repair irrigation. • Install sturdy trellises, wire mesh cages (not tomato cages), etc. to support tomatoes, cucumbers, climbing squashes, luffa, watermelon, pumpkins and other viners.
Fruiting trees and shrubs
• Now that peaches, nectarines, pears, pluots, cherries, pomegranates and other deciduous fruit trees are in flower and leafing out, slowly increase watering frequency (not duration).
• Apply organic fruit tree fertilizer to stone fruit, apple and pear trees. Pull back mulch beneath the entire canopy to expose the soil. Spread fertilizer over the soil, all the way to the edges of the canopy. Add some worm castings if you choose. Water the fertilizer well, then replace the mulch.
• Apply organic citrus and avocado food to citrus, avocado and other subtropical fruit trees. Follow the same process as for apple, stone fruit and pear trees.
• Continue to harvest and enjoy the season’s citrus. Once the rains end, water deeply every few weeks.
• Fig trees, pomegranate, pineapple guava, tropical guava and loquat don’t need fertilizer, but they do need a layer of mulch, 3 inches thick or thicker. Water deeply but only occasionally as the rains end.
• Loquat fruits ripen toward the end of the month. What will you make with them? Jam? Chutney? Or just enjoy the fruits fresh?
• Improve fruiting by adding plants that attract butterflies, native bees, honey bees, butterflies, flies, beetles, hummingbirds, bats and other pollinators to your garden. As the pollinators carry pollen from flower to flower, they unintentionally start the fertilization that causes flowers to become fruits.
Ornamental perennials, shrubs, vines and trees
• Consider plants that attract important pollinators to your garden:
- Plants with tube-shape flowers like sages (Salvia), Grevilleaand native currants (Ribes) attract butterflies and hummingbirds.
- Plants with clusters of tiny flowers like yarrow (Achillea) and St. Catherine’s lace (Eriogonum giganteum) attract bees and butterflies.
- Plants with shallow or open (Peritoma arborea). flowers like zinnia, poppies and • Cut away parts of plants asters attract bees. damaged from winter cold. They
- Wide-open flowers like magnolia will resprout new stems and and California poppy attract leaves. beetles. • This is a very good wildflower
- Large, fragrant white flowers year in the deserts and foothills. like Agave attract bats. Track the bloom at desertusa.com,
- Red, orange and yellow flowers the Theodore Payne attract birds. Foundation Wildflower Hotline at
- Red, purple and other brightcolored theodorepayne.org/learn/wildflower-hotline flowers attract butterflies. and the California
- Purple and blue flowers attract Department of Parks and Recreation bees and other insects. Wildflower Bloom page at
- Bright white, yellow and blue bit.ly/CAParksWildflowerBlooms. flowers like California lilac (Ceanothus) attract native bees. • Before you head out to see
• South African bulbs start wildflowers, check out the flowers their show this month — species that bloom in the areas you plan Gladiolus, starfish flower (Ferraria), to visit. You might see native bugle lily (Watsonia) and verbenas, lotus, native deerweed, others bloom in full sun. Forest native onions, fiddlenecks, native lily (Veltheimia bracteata) snapdragons and many more. blooms best in shade. • Heading for a local chaparral
• Deadhead spring- and hike? Look for native mariposa summer-blooming perennials lilies such as pink-blooming Calochortus like daylilies and sages after their splendens, bright yellow flowers fade. Often, deadheading with gold-speckled Calochortus stimulates the next round of weedii, and white-blooming blooms. Calochortus dunnii. Enjoy these
• Cut back and water fading bulbs in habitat. They are very California poppies to stimulate challenging garden plants. one more round of bloom this • NEVER pick wildflowers in spring. the wild, DON’T collect cuttings
• Continue to plant California and NEVER collect seed pods. natives like lemonade berry Those flowers make the seeds
(Rhus integrifolia), bush sunflower that ensure a new generation of (Encelia californica), plants next year and for years to California buckwheat (Eriogonum come. When you remove flowers fasciculatum var fasciculatum), and/or seeds, you threaten the Tecate cypress (Hesperocyparis future of these generations of forbesii) and bladderpod wildflowers. It is illegal, as well.
• Groom Agave, Aeonium, Cordyline, Furcraea, bromeliads and other rosette-shaped plants that make new leaves in the center, while old leaves at the bottom wither and dry.
• Flush out the centers of bromeliad plants in the ground. Turn potted plants over to shake out water, then refill with fresh water. Sprinkle Mosquito Bits into the water that collects in the center of the leafy rosette.
• Start watering plumeria when leaves appear toward the end of the month.
• Start fertilizing roses with slow-release fertilizer.
Irrigation
• When it comes to ornamental plants, don’t increase watering just yet. The temperatures are still cool, the sun is still low in the sky and the days are still short enough to water all ornamentals just occasionally.
• When you irrigate, always run the irrigation for the same number of minutes — just far less often in the cooler months than in the warmest months.
• Prepare your irrigation for spring. Convert overhead spray systems and outdated pointsource drip irrigation to in-line drip. Remember to convert entire zones at once since different kinds of irrigation operate at different pressures.
• Run each irrigation zone and walk the lines looking for leaks,
drips, disconnected lines, etc. They are easiest to fix now, while plants are just beginning their spring growth spurt.
More
• Refresh your garden’s mulch. The goal is a 3- to 4-inch layer over the entire garden except a patch of bare soil, 5 or 10 square feet, for native, ground-dwelling bees. They are great pollinators and very rarely sting humans.
• Weed, weed, weed, weed, weed. Pull weeds out by the roots or cut off the top growth with a hoe. Do it as soon as you notice the leaves. Do not let weeds flower. Those flowers contain the seeds for next year’s crop of weeds.
• This is the perfect time to start seeds for summer vegetables, herbs and flowers to transplant later. Learn how in my Easy Seed Starting Online Course, where I turn you into a superstar seed starter. Learn more at bit.ly/ ESSONLINE
• Or, sign up for one of my exclusive, hands-on In-Person Seed Starting Workshops. You get my personal attention, plus access the entire online course and all of its perks! Learn more at bit.ly/ESSInPerson