March Gardening Chores 2025

 

Florida Flame Azalea is available as stock. Check the link below

In March the weather teases gardeners into believing spring is almost around the corner, with lots of continuous sunny and warm days. During this time of year, the weather is very unpredictable for planning and the weather is like a roller coaster, one day it’s nice and sunny, then the next day it’s cold and rainy.  As gardeners we get antsy, we want to get out in our garden and play in the dirt. But we know better, the last average frost date is still a month or two months away, depending on your gardening zone. This is when we can start planning for this year’s spring garden. Spring is a good time to check out new gardening books. There are three gardening books I would like to recommend Southeast Style Gardening, Gardening for the Butterflies, and Grow Fresh Air. The books are for sale on the Hibiscusandmore.com website. The books can help you plan your garden for spring.

March Gardening Chores

As we patiently wait for spring to arrive, we can start preparing by starting seeds. Start spring flowers and vegetables from seeds indoors. It takes about 6 weeks to get strong seedlings. To make starting seeds easier several horticultural companies have designed and marketed seed germination kits. The kits can be bought at local nurseries, Home Depot, Lowe’s, and online. There is a kit that includes 2 grow lights, seedling heat mat, growing tray, base tray for excess water, 2 vents on the cover, garden tools, and plant labels. This kit is just one that was listed on Amazon that I found.

Spring is a good time to prune your shrubs and vines. Just be aware that some plants bloom on new growth where as other plants bloom on old growth. When in doubt prune after flowering.

March is the last month recommended to prune Roses to half their original size. After pruning rake up last year’s mulch and replace with new mulch. This should be done especially if your roses had black spot because the black spot spores are lying dormant on top of last year’s mulch. Fertilize with Bayer Advanced Rose Fertilizer after pruning and apply once a month. Click Here for More Information on Roses.

Prune back Holly shrubs that have gotten too large. If needed, you can prune back to 4 feet or higher, but if the holly shrubs are 10 to 15 feet you can do the pruning in stages until you find the height that you like.

Flowering shrubs such as Winter Honeysuckle, Quince, and Forsythia can be pruned after flowering.

Is your Liriope looking at little tattered? The leaves can be cut either with a weed eater or your lawn mower set on its highest setting.

Trim back deciduous grasses before the grass breaks dormancy.

Add fresh layer of mulch on all trees and shrubs to prevent weeds. To prevent future weeds from growing add pre-emergent weed preventer on top of the mulch. Check the label to see how often you need to re-apply for continuous protection.

Fertilize winter flowering annuals with a blooming type fertilizer. Water in all granular type fertilizers.

Lawns should have lime at least yearly. Have you limed your lawn lately? Use 40 pounds per 1000 square feet.

Fertilize Pecan Trees with a fruit tree fertilizer and water in well after.

Fertilize shrubs with a shrub and tree fertilizer and water in well.

Need to divide your perennials? When the leaves start to show you can divide and plant elsewhere in your garden. Use a mixture of SuperThrive and Recharge, professional strength microbial superpack as a root stimulator for best results after planting.

One of the best times to plant fruit and nut trees is in early spring. Nurseries have a good selection of these trees in spring, but hurry the selection usually goes fast.

Peach and Apple trees need to be sprayed with a fungicide recommended for fruit trees, and spray the trees while the blossoms are on the tree.

Check for scale insects on Camellias and Euonymus. Spray with a horticultural oil, if you detect the insects.

All photographs maybe purchased as fine art prints at HibiscusandMore.com  

Cheryl Ann Meola Art

Butterfly Gardening

Houseplants - Grow Fresh Air

Need floral stock photography?

https://www.shutterstock.com/g/Cheryl+Ann+Meola

https://stock.adobe.com/contributor/210785031/Cheryl

All photographs and digital images are ©Cheryl Ann Meola. All Rights Reserved. All photographs and digital images displayed in this newsletter are for viewing purposes only and cannot be duplicated or copied.

 

 

 

 

Cheryl Ann Meola Tropical Botanicals and Nature Stock Photography

          Cheryl Ann Meola Tropical Botanicals and Nature Stock Photography 

An avid horticulturist and gardener, Cheryl Ann Meola gained invaluable experience in the eighteen years she worked within the plant nursery industry. Her career began with Cornelius nursery in Houston, Texas where she took classes to become a Texas Certified Nursery Professional. Upon completion of the courses, she was promoted to bedding plant supervisor.

In 1989, she received her Associate in Arts degree in Landscape Architecture from Miami-Dade Community College (MDCC). During this time, she worked for five years at MDCC in their Landscape Technology Nursery, a teaching nursery.

While at the nursery, she photographed the plants, and her plant photography was later used as an instructional tool for Plant Identification students. The photo guide of native and tropical flora inspired the idea to write Southeast Style Gardening. While writing Southeast Style Gardening she became an estate gardener at Deeridge Farms, and was responsible for growing organic vegetables, herbs, tropical fruits, ornamentals, tropicals, and orchids. The ornamentals, tropicals, and orchids were utilized in the landscape, and the fresh edibles were enjoyed by the owners. She enjoyed all the praise!

Cheryl realized while writing Southeast Style Gardening that she could use the same writing format to author other gardening books. After her first book was finished, she began writing a book about Butterfly Gardening as she had already done extensive research into butterfly gardening to design a butterfly garden for a friend. Thus, Gardening for the Butterflies: Designing and Creating a Butterfly-Friendly Landscape was written. The book will allow the reader to plan and plant a butterfly garden. Basic butterfly gardening topics include: the life cycle of the butterfly, an introduction to butterfly gardening, planning and planting your garden, gardening tips and guidelines, and planning and planting butterfly container gardens, watering, and fertilizers to have a beautiful garden. To help in the design process the book includes a butterfly design plan and key to where the plants go, suggested plants for each zone 3-11, and a master list of nectar and larval food plants for zones 3-11 for the design key to help in the design process.

After Gardening for the Butterflies, Cheryl began writing about houseplants and the wonderful health and air purifying benefits houseplants give their owners. Thus, Grow Fresh Air was written. All books can be purchased on Amazon on the links provided in each section the book is mentioned. All Photography in her books is by Cheryl Ann Meola. All images Cheryl needed for the three books became an intensive data base, which got her to have another idea about using her images, Stock Photography.

Cheryl Ann Meola’s stock portfolio specializes in tropical botanicals and Nature photography. Each image has the current botanical, scientific, and common names. Cheryl just added new images to her stock photography portfolio. The new images are Cocos nucifera - Coconut Palm, Cyrtomium falcatum - Holly Fern, Magnolia grandiflora - Southern Magnolia, Platycodon grandiflorus - Balloon Flower, Coreopsis lanceolata - Lance-leaved Coreopsis. This is just an example of what has been uploaded this week. Check back weekly because images are being uploaded daily. You can search Cheryl’s portfolio by common or botanical name. The images are royalty-free images.

Need floral stock photography? Click here. Need botanical stock photography? Click here

All photographs and digital images are ©Cheryl Ann Meola. All Rights Reserved. All photographs and digital images displayed in this newsletter are for viewing purposes only and cannot be duplicated or copied.

https://www.shutterstock.com/g/Cheryl+Ann+Meola   

https://stock.adobe.com/contributor/210785031/cheryl 

Coconut Tree

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tropical Botanicals and Nature Photography Stock Photos

 

Are you acquainted with someone in Publishing, Newspapers, Magazines or Textbooks industries? Does that acquaintance need or is searching for the perfect photo to illustrate the article or book? Let me introduce a stock botanical photographer that specializes in tropical botanicals and Nature photography. Each image has the current botanical, scientific, and common names. Cheryl just added new images to her stock photography portfolio. The new images are Mosquito Plant, American Lotus, Alocasia, False Aralia, Azalea, Caladium, Swamp Leather Fern, Variegated Tapioca Plant, and Buccaneer Palm. The images are royalty-free images. Here is a Link to few the new images: Cheryl Ann Meola Photography

Several changes in scientific names are the result of studies by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group, (APG). The changes in scientific names are the result of two decades of research by a new generation of taxonomists applying DNA datasets or the testing of the plant’s DNA and modern phylogenetic theory. DNA datasets did not exist twenty years ago.

Here is the link: Cheryl Ann Meola Photography Stock Photography

 

All Images are copyrighted Cheryl Ann Meola 2021.