Gardening This Weekend – March 6, 2025
It’s been tough to be a tulip this spring in Texas. Or a pansy, or a daffodil. When the cold doesn’t get you, the 75 mph winds will. But we gardeners forge right ahead. Here are your assignments for early March.
PLANT
• Frost-tolerant annuals are still advised in the northern two-thirds of Texas. (Current trends being what they are, who’s to say that we won’t have one more frost before this winter thing is all over.) Warm-weather types in the southern third of the state.
• Warm-season vegetables in the southern third of the state. Leafy and root crops in the rest (cooler) regions.
• Nursery stock as supplies arrive. Make your plans early and buy when you see the types that you want. The best types always sell out first.
PRUNE
• Monitor winter damage to shrubs, vines and groundcovers. Tidy them up now, before new growth kicks in at full speed. Remove types that were killed or damaged beyond repair.
• Spring-flowering shrubs and vines immediately after they finish blooming. Reshape them to keep them in bounds but avoid formal pruning whenever possible.
FERTILIZE
• New annual flowers and vegetables at time of planting with liquid high-nitrogen fertilizer to promote quick establishment. Follow-up feedings should be with all-nitrogen or high-nitrogen fertilizers you intend to use on your lawn (not “weed-and-feed” types).
• Lawns in deep South Texas with high-nitrogen fertilizer in sandy soils, all-nitrogen for clay soils due to their retention of phosphorus to excessive levels. Wait one month to fertilize turf in northern two-thirds of state. There is nothing to be gained by rushing the feeding. The grass will not grow until soils warm a good bit.
• Shrubs and groundcover beds with same type of high-quality fertilizer you would use for your turfgrass (no weedkiller added). This can be applied now to promote new growth as plants recover from damage of the cold.
ON THE LOOKOUT
• Pre-emergent granules Dimension, Halts, or Balan) should be applied to prevent germination of crabgrass and grassburs in any type of lawn. (These are not the grassy weeds you can see in your lawn now. What you see now are weeds that germinated in fall and grew all winter.)
• Broadleafed weedkiller (containing 2,4-D) to eliminate non-grassy weeds such as chickweed, dandelions, clover, dichondra, plantain, wild violets, wild onions and lawn burweed. Read and follow label directions for best results.
• Aphids congregating on tender new growth on perennials, trees, shrubs, and annual flowers and vegetables. Most general-purpose insecticides work well on them, or you can try washing them off with a hard stream of water.