The pressure is on! Only a few small white patches left in the garden and what to do first out there becomes the first question of the day, presuming of course it is not howling a gale or having the last laugh with a snow squall. March is always the month that keeps gardeners on their toes. To rake or not to rake, to start seeds or wait a little longer, time or not to uncover and dust off the garden furniture that you rarely sit in and so on.

Few of us can wait until the end of March to get our hands dirty and such is the case here. The greenhouse has been given a good tidy up and sweeping out, some seeds planted, Ranunculus started, and now the heavy work begins.

One of my greatest pleasures is crawling around on my hands and knees in the soggy soil to see what is already on its way to the summer garden party of bloom.  Although I haven’t been down on my knees just yet, I managed to fluff up some leaves in my spring bulb garden already and was happy to see so many bulb leaves already several inches out of the ground. The Hellebores have healthy looking fresh green crowns and I will wait to remove last year’s still leathery green leaves until they start to go brown. Plentiful ‘Stinky Bob or ‘Herb Robert’ Geranium robertianum was removed at the same time. It is such a pretty little plant but would take over the garden if it could.

I have checked the roses and will likely prune once I can see for sure which branches are alive or dead! In this cold climate, roses can be unpredictable even the hardy shrub roses. Heavy frozen snow will break some branches and give some of them winter kill. It is pretty easy to tell once the buds start to swell, where they need a good tidy up, pruning to outward facing buds. Shrub roses I used to prune down by a third but as the deer have almost obliterated the ones in my front garden they will be transplanted this spring to my already overcrowded back garden.

With many shrubs it is important to wait until after blooming before pruning as this year’s flower buds were formed last season. Pruning now will remove the blooms. It is a common mistake with Lilac, Mock Orange, some Hydrangeas, Rhodos, Clematis and many more. It is easy now to check either on line or in a trusted pruning manual. My hardy Star Magnolia has some beautiful fat fluffy buds waiting to burst open but unfortunately one of its lower branches was broken by frozen ice under the snow.

We now have an arborist come and take care of the apple trees as they need their water sprouts removed every year. They are old variety trees artificially kept to a manageable height but the result of that is that the tree still wants to achieve its genetically programmed stature and sends out many vertical shoots from the high branches every spring. There are now many smaller varieties of fruit trees on the market more suited for this climate. Our Amur Maple suffered damage this year after a heavy wet snowfall and that too needs to be taken care of.

The ‘lawn’ or grassed area is another topic of personal preference. We don’t grow a ‘fine’ lawn. It is a mixture of clover and hardy grasses that serves as a dog play area and canvas for the overcrowded perennial and shrub borders. It is too wet to rake yet but will get a comb out when a little drier. It might be fertilized if we deem it necessary!

Such is the nature of Spring clean-up, a long ‘to do’ list that uses muscles you forgot you had but breathes a renewed motivation and enjoyment of all things  green and blooming.

Some things never change.

Won by Waiting from ‘Green Fingers’ by Reginald Arkell, 1934

You’ve never finished working in a garden

Until it’s time to go to bed.

Your’re either squirting soapsuds on the roses,

Or picking all the pansies that are dead.

You’re either tying up that new delphinium

Or hammering a nail into the wall –

But, any proper gardener will tell you

That waiting is the hardest job of all.