Garden Tips

What Gardening Tasks to Do in March 

These Garden Tips are from OSU Extension 

Pest Monitoring and Management

  • Spray trees and shrubs for webworms and leafrollers, if present.

  • Protect new plant growth from slugs. Least toxic management options include barriers and traps. Baits are also available for slug control; iron phosphate baits are safe to use around pets. Read and follow all label directions prior to using baits or any other chemical control.

  • Learn to identify the predatory insects that can help keep aphids and other pests under control.

  • Spray to control leaf and twig fungus diseases in dogwood, sycamore, hawthorn, and willow trees.

  • Prune ornamentals for air circulation and to help prevent fungus diseases.

  • Western Oregon: start rose blackspot control tactics at budbreak. Control rose diseases such as black spot. Remove infected leaves. Spray as necessary with registered fungicide.

  • Western Oregon: monitor for European crane fly and treat lawns if damage has been verified.

  • Monitor landscape plants for problems. Don’t treat unless a problem is identified.

Planting/Propagation

  • Divide hosta, daylilies, and mums.

  • Use stored scion wood to graft fruit and ornamental trees.

  • Plant insectary plants (e.g. Alyssum, Phacelia, coriander, candytuft, sunflower, yarrow, and dill) to attract beneficial insects to the garden. For more information, see Encouraging Beneficial Insects in Your Garden (PNW550).

  • Central Oregon: sow chard seeds outdoors. Plant seed flats of cole crops (cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts) indoors or in a greenhouse.

  • Western Oregon: if soil is dry enough, prepare vegetable garden and plant early cool-season crops (carrots, beets, broccoli, leeks, parsley, chives, rhubarb, peas, radish). Plant onions outdoors as soon as the soil is dry enough to work.

  • Western Oregon: plant berry crops (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, currants, gooseberries, and other berry-producing crop plants). See OSU Extension publications for varieties.

Maintenance and Clean Up

  • Lawn mowing: set blade at 0.75 to 1 inch for bentgrass lawns; 1.5 to 2.5 inches for bluegrasses, fine fescues, and ryegrasses.

  • Compost grass clippings and yard waste, except for clippings from lawns where weed-and-feed products or herbicides (weed killers) have been used.

  • Spread compost over garden and landscape areas.

  • Prune gooseberries and currants; fertilize with manure or a complete fertilizer.

  • Fertilize evergreen shrubs and trees, only if needed. If established and healthy, their nutrient needs should be minimal.

  • If needed, fertilize rhododendrons, camellias, azaleas with acid-type fertilizer. If established and healthy, their nutrient needs should be minimal.

  • Western Oregon: prune spring-flowering shrubs after blossoms fade.

  • Western Oregon: fertilize caneberries (broadcast or band a complete fertilizer or manure).

 

Wind-whip on Roses

  • The first real November wind arrived this week and it serves as a reminder to cut back your roses to about 3 feet tall. This will help preserve the old and new cane from breaking off from wind whip. Another benefit from only cutting back to 3 feet…if we get sustained cold temperatures, the cane will get some freeze burn, but you will have plenty of cane left to cut back in February. Happy Gardening!

 

 

Putting plants in their place

  • Measure twice, cut once is the old carpenters rule, but its just another way to say; do it right the first time…applies to gardening too
  • Doing your homework of knowing the conditions of where you are going to plant a plant. Sun…shade…low spot in the ground…dry shade…soil type…so many different types of conditions to consider…analyze and document
  • Purchase plants that fit the conditions of its new home…shade loving plants in the shade, sun loving plants in the sun…etc
    Keep them well cared for the first year in the ground. Example…if you are planting on a hot day, provide makeshift shade that will help diminish shock

Xeriscaping

The art of creating a landscape with the goal to reduce water usage is called xeriscaping. Plants requiring little or no watering, or those that can survive droughts, are chosen to fill the landscape. Cultural practices such as soil preparation and mulching are also important and used extensively in xeriscaping.

Xeriscaping DOES NOT mean using no water in the landscape. It does, however, imply the managed use of water; in other words, the effort to reduce the amount of water that homeowners need to supply to plants in addition to typical rainfalls amounts. 
Many plants tolerant of drought conditions are also tolerant of flood conditions. Choosing plants that tolerate less water and look good is a wonderful combination.

First year in the ground needs to be cared for just like anything else.

Bud Worm

  • Tobacco budworm feeds on the buds and petals of many commonly grown flowers, including geranium, petunia and nicotiana.
  • The insect survives winter as a pupa in the soil. Where soil freezes deeply, most overwintering Insects are killed.
  • Tobacco budworm is resistant to most Garden insecticides.

Spinosad is a relatively new insect killer that was discovered from soil in an abandoned rum distillery in 1982. Produced by fermentation, Spinosad can be used on outdoor ornamentals, lawns, vegetables and fruit trees, to control caterpillars, thrips, leafminers, borers, fruit flies, and more.
Classified as an organic substance by the USDA National Organic Standards Board. OMRI Listed for use in organic production. THE LABEL IS THE LAW.

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