March is the “awakening month”, the time when nature arouses from its winter sleep.  Look for the first crocus and dandelions.  Note the first robin returning from his winter home in the South.  Also look for cowbirds, mourning doves, American kestrels, bluebirds, red-winged black birds, and killdeer.  You will notice chipmunks emerging from their winter hideouts and eating at your birdfeeders.

Birds will be ready to start nesting this month so if you want them in your yard you will need to have your bird houses cleaned of last year’s nests  and placed out in the yard.  Check your dryer vents as it is a tempting place to put a nest.  Cover your chimney to prevent birds, bats, squirrels and even raccoons from nesting in your house.

March is a good time to clean up debris left from winter.  Compost the twigs and dead leaves you collect.

Take a soil sample to find out the needs of your lawn and garden.  The Extension office can provide fact sheets on how to take a sample and  where to send the sample.  When you receive the soil analysis, check the calcium levels for your vegetable gardens.  Low levels of calcium along with fluctuating soil moisture can cause blossom end rot in tomatoes.

If you have a backyard garden pool, now is the time to clean it and refill it with fresh water.  You can plant hardy water lilies from now until May.

Look for termites, carpenter ants, and box elder bugs which emerge on warm days.  Check for cankerworm masses on maples, oaks and flowering fruit trees.  Look for eggs masses of tent caterpillar , gypsy moth and bagworm on trees and shrubs.  Be sure to remove and destroy any you find.

Check for cankers (which are brown or black sunken areas of dead tissue) on twigs, branches, and trunks.  Cut into the wood and look for the transition of healthy white wood to brown dying wood and prune out the affected areas.  Be sure to clean your pruners afterwards with a solution of 10% bleach water.  Black knot, a canker disease on plum trees, sweet and sour cherry trees and chokecherry, causes black roughened spindle-like knots on the twigs and branches.  During the Spring it releases spores which infest the green tissue of the tree producing more black knots.  Prune out limbs below the knots and destroy all of the clippings.

Prune roses when the buds begin to swell.  Remove all dead and spindly growth and canes back to live wood.  Remove the weaker of two crossing branches.  You can cut back a healthy rose plant to 24-36 inches. You can start to gradually  remove the winter mulch covering your roses now.

Start annual flowers such as snap dragons, browallia, ornamental peppers, coleus, and morning glories for transplanting in 6 to 8 weeks.  Sow seed of hardy annual flowers such as calendula, clarkia, larkspur, California poppy, sweet pea and petunia at the end of the month if the weather permits.

Plant carrots, Swiss chard, peas, collards, kale, kohlrabi, leaf lettuce, onions, parsley, parsnips, radishes, potatoes salsify, and spinach when the weather permits.

Don’t work your soil if it is too wet! You can tell when it is ready to work when a handful of soil squeezed in your hand shatters easily when you release it.  If it forms a mud ball when squeezed, it is not ready.

Renew your indoor plants by repotting.  Prune or divide at this time.

For additional information on the above topics, contact the OSU Extension, Union County, 246 West Fifth Street, Marysville, 937 644-8117.

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All educational programs conducted by Ohio State University Extension are available to clientele on a nondiscriminatory basis without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, gender, age, disability or Vietnam-era veteran status.

Keith L. Smith, Associate Vice President for Ag. Admin. and Director, OSU Extension TDD No. 800-589-8292 (Ohio only) or 614-292-1868

Revised November, 2001