The Effects of Sunlight and Fresh Air on the Body 

  Exposure to Plants and Parks Can Boost Immunity
Spending Time in Nature Makes People Feel More Alive
Fresh Air Does a Body Good 

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Voted 'Best Greenhouse and Nursery' in Skagit Publishing's People's Choice Awards for 2011 

NW Flower & Garden Show

"People's Choice Award 2011"

Cottonwood buds

• Time now to prune those roses and hydrangeas. If you feel unsure of yourself when it comes to pruning the roses, plan to attend 'Rose Pruning with John Christianson' on Saturday, March 10, from 11 am - noon.

• If you haven't done it yet, pruning and tying raspberries and other cane fruits will be much easier now than later. Assess the general condition of your patch. Though you might lose some production for a year, all these fruits transplant easily. Whether perennial weeds have overwhelmed the row, the trellising has proven inadequate, the rows ended up too close together, or it all needs to be up on bermed soil out of the rot-inducing sogginess, sometimes it makes sense to just start fresh.  Posts really do need to be stout and deep, the wire needs to be tight. The traditional bundling and tying of canes that you can observe in the commercial fields helps significantly in reducing the drag on the wires. 
   
• This is also a good month to shear any hedging shrubs. The hedging process promotes uniformity and density - a quality that is not always desired but that definitely has its applications.  Again, there's class at the Nursery this month that will answer all your hedge-related questions ('Hedging Techniques' is on Sunday, March 18, from 1 - 2:30 pm).

• March is a great time to fluff up and renew mulches. If you have used compost, chips, or bark as a weed-barrier, running a rake or hoe through it now will give it loft, helping to oxygenate the soil below and severing any little weeds just getting a foothold. If you are going to re-bark, taking the time to turn all the old bark down into the top foot of soil before adding the new top-dressing will work wonders for lightening the soil structure. Contrary to common belief, bark does not interact much with the soil and will not deplete the soil of nitrogen.

• If your soil needs nitrogen, March is a good month to give your gardens - both ornamental beds and vegetable beds - a spring boost. Nitrogen not only feeds the plants directly, but feeds the microbes and the earthworms whose populations are doing alot of your soil-conditioning work for you. Nitrogen is available in many forms. Avoid chemical forms (and this applies to all fertilizers). Although they will give the plants a rush (similar to a sugar-rush), they will be detrimental to the soil as a whole. Compost is wonderful, but can vary widely in actual nitrogen content, so you may want to supplement it with a more concentrated form of nitrogen if your plants don't seem to be putting on fast-enough growth. Digging in blood, fish, or feather meals will really make a difference (manure works too).

• And now a word about winter weeds!  When beginning or renewing a garden this time of year, it can be very obvious how loose or caked our soil is. When soil is dense and tight it stays wet, cold, and hard-to-work for a much longer time in spring. And since a hoe cannot run lightly and swiftly through it, every pop weed and other little weed that has crept in can represent an exasperating and tedious hand-picking job. If you have not yet experienced how different your gardening life can be with loose, deeply-fluffy soil, you have a discovery awaiting you! Developing your soil will reward you even more than it will your plants.

• As much as I hear people at their wit's end over pop-weeds, much more difficult to address this time of year are the rhizomatous and deep tap-rooted weeds that take hold during the winter months. Who has not tried to remove masses of quackgrass from iris, or buttercup mats that have over-taken the strawberries? Sometimes it is easier to just dig up the iris or strawberries and move them to a clean bed. Both are shallow-rooted and easy to move this time of year without being set back by the disturbance.
  
  Asparagus is another story as it is very deep-rooted. If you decide to try asparagus - and there's nothing like your own homegrown spears direct from the garden in spring! - plan well, read up, give it year-round attention, and don't let the weeds get started. A thick straw mulch in the winter is wonderful, but come spring be aware that the slugs may be hiding in it. Removing the straw in March will help to disperse the slugs and eggs, and also allow the soil to warm sooner, speeding the emergence of these delicacies. The same can be done with over-wintered garlic.  
• If you are starting peppers or tomatoes from seed, this is a good month to get them going indoors with supplemental heat and light. If this is a challenge at this point in your life as a gardener, we Skagitonians are lucky to have many sources of excellent veggie starts in a wide range of varieties. Check out the starts at the Nursery.  In addition to a great selection of veggie starts, Christianson's also has an exceptional variety of potatoes to plant that will become available this month. Select the ones about the size of an egg, set them on a tray indoors to sprout, and plant them out around St. Patrick's Day. The earlier you start, the more crop you will get before the late-blight becomes a threat.  But more on that later.  For now...