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Trim off dead or damaged branches, repot in fresh potting soil, and water well. Get stored plants into light, as bright as possible, but give them protection from late frosts. If you really wanted to give those hardy surviving geraniums and fuchsias a boost now, you could bring the repotted outdoor plants into the house for a month or two of cozy warm temperatures. Light areas inside the house may be rare, but if you can provide the plants with warm, light conditions they will put on excellent new growth now and bloom earlier during summer. The nursery plants we buy (both fuchsias and geraniums) in May have been basking in greenhouses, which gives them a welcome head start on bloom.
Be sure to fertilize the fuchsias and geraniums once they are repotted and settled in for a growth spurt. (Any liquid houseplant fertilizer will work fine during March.) One fertilizer that doesn't help much during early spring when temperatures are cool is the pelleted coated fertilizer that releases nutrients gradually. (One type is sold as Osmocote but there are others.) These are fine fertilizers for warm-soil conditions, and they are certainly useful additions to potting soil for summer containers that will be warming in sun, however the soil temperatures need to get up to about 70 degrees before the fertilizer releases well. Time-release fertilizers work well on houseplants year round and on container plants in the warmer times of the summer.
You'll be noticing daffodil buds during the first week in March. These spring bulbs bloom well during their first year but need some care to get to their second and future seasons. To assure the strength of next year's hardy spring bulbs, fertilize them lightly with a liquid fertilizer (such as a fish fertilizer) or a granular 5-10-10 now, just as they are starting to bloom. Don't apply granular fertilizer to dry soils; if rain isn't predicted, use the liquid fertilizer.
Once the spring bulbs have completed their bloom, allow the foliage to ripen (a more exciting word than "die down.") Crocus and daffodil bulbs spread and persist beautifully in gardens here. The sunnier the location for your spring bulbs, the more they will flourish in subsequent spring seasons. As gardeners continue to consider ways of saving water, concentrating on spring landscapes makes sense because the bulbs go dormant during summer and require no additional summer irrigation.
Choose and plant trees and shrubs from nurseries now while soil is still damp from our frequent winter rains. Look at spring-blooming shrubs in containers to find your favorites. (A stunning fragrant beauty for this season is Daphne odora 'Variegata' which blooms in shady spots with citrus-scented delights.) Select and plant summer and fall-blooming herbaceous perennials.
Now's the time to plant annual sweet peas, irresistable to many of us because they remind us of our childhood gardens. Check the seed packets to determine which ones are marked "sweet scent" or the like, because some hybrid sweet peas look gorgeous but lack perfume. 'Cupani' and 'Spencer Mix,' are deeply scented. 'Cupani' is a very old variety, named for one of the early Italian developers of the sweet pea.
Prune any diseased or damaged tree and shrub limbs; shape the plants. Thin over-crowded branches to improve air circulation, which will also help plants stay healthy by reducing fungal infections.
Spring-blooming shrubs such as forsythia, spirea, and rhododendron are pruned when they bloom or immediately after blooming. It's wonderful to have the bloom opening indoors if you bring pruned branches indoors. Spring-blooming shrubs form next year's buds in late summer. If they are pruned in the fall or winter, as is very common, spring blossom is cut off for the following season. Doing the pruning now assures the best bloom for next year's spring season.
Hortsense: Managing plant problems with Integrated Pest Management
