March !

It’s not a command, just the third month of the year. Everything you’ve done in the garden during the past four months is now starting to look a bit shabby. Edging is falling over, herbs are bolting, bulb plantings are tired of standing up, dropping their heads, generally giving up.
But you can’t! You have to dig up those bulbs, dry them out, store them in a cool place, ready for use next October.
I know, you’re thinking: “When does this end?” It doesn’t. Gardening is forever, infinite, perpetuating. If you don’t love it, buy some bricks and pave the whole place.
Of course you won’t. You want colour; you want freshness; you want to smell the earth. Don’t you? So, on with the sunhat and down on your knees you go! Tidy up those borders, loosen the soil, work in the compost and a little bonemeal.
Check for lily borer (brithys crini) caterpillars in the nerines, clivias and amaryllis. If the leaves have turned brown or show blistering, these pesky caterpillars have settled in. You have no choice – pull those plants up and refresh the soil with compost.
Off to the nursery then for some new winter bulbs (or into the garden shed to find last year’s bulbs that you’ve dried and saved). Freesias, ixias, babianas. Daffodil bulbs have to stay in the shed a bit longer, until the weather cools down.
Sow indigenous annuals among the bulbs, like daisies, nemesias, blue flax. Colour explosion imminent! But don’t neglect your roses. Deadhead regularly and spoil them with generous feed.
High-potash fertiliser for the lawn will strengthen it for winter. In other words: don’t stop marching in March. It’s almost time to execute the plan for winter colour in your kingdom.