March 2008 Edition of The Frugal Gardener

It's spring! Well, at least it's almost spring. March 20 ushers in my favorite garden season of all.

It's time tro start pulling back the fallen leaves to expose the bulbs and perennials to the sun, feed your roses (if you haven't already), feed houseplants, and if you're a Florida gardener (hi Robin and Bo G!), it's time to plant summer bulbs and get perennials into the ground before the heat hits.

This month we'll do a round the country check on some things you should be doing in March, get some info about a gorgeous perennial, and take a peek at what Burpee is offering that's new for 2008.

Ready? Let's hit it.

While I certainly enjoy looking at other seed catalogs, Burpee tends to be the one I order from the most. This year they have quite a few new things to offer that I'd like to point out to you.

Veggies

Radishes: This year the best 25-dayer is called Perfecto. If you enjoy the sharp, peppery taste of radishes, this Mediterranean favorite will be the one for you.

Watermelon: This new variety -- Ruby Hybrid Seedless -- is a great size for a refrigerator. It's seedless and weighs in at only between six and 8 pounds. Great for small family.

Hot Peppers: The new habanero pepper hits the marketplace with the name Zavory. While many people find the habanero to be way too hot, Burpee claims that this new version is as mild as biting into an apple. These plants are a bit pricey at $11.50 for three of them but it might be a fun experiment.

Tomatoes: The new snack size tomato called Italian Ice has a color that is nearly transparent. It ripens from green to ivory and are supposed to be quite sweet.

Sweet peppers: The Flavorburst hybrid pepper is Burpee's latest taste test winner. The bell peppers begin the color of a Granny Smith apple and end up the color of goldenrod. Here's a great variety to get wonderful, sweet yellow peppers.

Flowers

Dahlias: If you're as biga fan of these flowers as I am, you'll be thrilled to see this new variety called Showtime. The outer petals are a striped orange and the inner petals are a delicate lemon yellow. At only 16 inches tall this annual should be perfect in a container.

Spreading petunias: A new color is bursting on the scene to join the ranks of purple and pink wave. Burpee's new variety, Baby Duck, will give you mounds of pale yellow blooms all summer long.

Impatiens: If you're seeking a tropical look this summer in your shade garden, try Fusion Peach Frost impatiens. Mixed in with a deep apricot New Guinea impatien you'll have a really nice color palette to go with the dark green of your hostas.

Coleus: I love coleus. The most wonderful color combination I saw in the last few years was from Burpee and it was bright pink and deep ultamarine blue that was absolutely gorgeous. This year, they've come out with something called chocolate mint. The leaves are a very deep chocolate brown dotted on the edges with lime green.

March is a busy season for just about every gardener in America. As I said in the beginning of this newsletter, you'll want to start feeding your houseplants again and getting them ready to go outside when the weather has warmed up significantly. You may also want to think about getting your soil tested so that you know what kind of amendments you'll need.

If you live in the Midwest, make sure that you have started your seeds of vegetable and flower annuals and check your shrubs. You may need to prune them.

For Northeast gardeners, you may be still living with a rather thick blanket of snow on the ground. You can certainly start your seeds for warm weather vegetables inside and, as your weather gets warmer, start pulling back the mulch that protected your plants over the winter.

In the mid Atlantic, start thinking about putting out your hardy annuals even though your frost free date may not be for a month or more way. Prune roses before the buds come out and also give them a good feeding of timed release fertilizer.

If you live in the Pacific Northwest, you can plant peas at the end of March and start some seeds indoors.

In the Southeast, cool season vegetables can go into the ground and you can direct seed crops like beats and carrots.

In the Southwest? Get the soil warmed up by pulling back your mulch but don't get too cocky and throw those covers way. You may still have a freeze. You can also plant summer bulbs and cold weather vegetables.

This month's question comes from Nancy in Kilmarnock, Virginia: "I'd love to plant peonies but I don't know much about them. Are they easy to grow?"

Thanks so much for your question, Nancy. As many of you know, I live in Tidewater Virginia. And in Tidewater Virginia the word peony is pronounced pee-yo-nee. It took me a while to figure out what my garden friends were saying but now I'm hip to the lingo (that should tell you how I really am) and I'm digging my pee-yo-nees.

If you've never planted peonies, they're a beautiful and antique flower. They take a while to get established and you need to buy them bare rooted.

While they're an easy plant to care for, you'll need to be patient with them because they won't bloom for the first year or two. And even when they start to bloom you'll only have one blossom on the plant.

When they really start getting rowdy, you'll have up to half a dozen blooms on a plant and they can be top-heavy so you'll want to be careful to stake them.

They're a wonderful accent to any garden bed and provide a terrific anchor. They typically bloom in May and June but the foliage is really nice as well and lasts until frost.

Peonies do need to be in a colder climate in order to get flower buds to set. Never plant the roots more than a few inches below the surface of the soil.

I hope this inspires you to try peonies if you live in the right part of the country and let me know how they do.