March.
This is a busy month in the garden. When it ‘comes in like a lion’ you have to sit idle; but directly there are mild, dry days you should be at work. Wherever you mean to sow seeds the ground should be well dug, and then raked smooth and fine. If you just rake the top, and leave the soil beneath in a hard cake, your seeds will be like those sown in the parable that fell on stony ground and had no depth of earth. They will spring up, but they will have no roots, and when the sun comes they will wither away. In a cold climate Sweet-peas and Mignonette should not be sown till the middle or end of this month, and most other seeds will do better if sown in April. March is too early for Nasturtiums or Convolvuluses, two flowers most children wish to grow.
Towards the end of the month you can divide those herbaceous plants that are not spring-flowering, if you wish to increase them. You must not disturb plants that are just going to flower, but all the strong kinds will stand division and transplanting when they have only sent up young leaves. For instance, you could take up a Phlox, a Michaelmas Daisy, or even a Pyrethrum, on a showery day, pull it to pieces, and find that every bit made a strong plant by the autumn. In the rock garden the mossy Saxifrages that have bald places in the middle should be taken up, divided, and firmly replanted. This is the way to treat many little rock plants that grow themselves shabby in a year or two.
Any new hardy perennials you want may be planted in favourable March weather, and so may the autumn-flowering Gladioli.