With the sun starting to make itself felt and the days lengthening, March is when I feel my spirits lifting. I, and it seems many gardeners, have a heightened sensitivity to light. Maybe that’s why we’ve chosen to spend our lives gardening.
I like winter hibernation, but even in the south of England it goes on too long for me. November and December are fine, as is the quiet withdrawal of January, but in February, with the drear continuing, I sometimes find it hard. March 1, and even better the spring equinox towards the end of the month, feels good.
The banks on the lane and edges of the woods around us start to fill with primroses and the bluebell leaf spears pierce through and lengthen week by week, while the goat willows flare like lightbulbs amongst the silver-browns of all the other trees.
Changes in the garden seem slow at first, then everything rockets. With growth curves steepening day by day, March is the month of mass propagation and getting plants going. It’s the peak time for sowing seeds, potting up dahlia tubers and planting out hardy annuals such as sweet peas.
There are, thank goodness, a few early tulips, but above all, daffodils (Narcissus) are this month’s optimistic flower family, the first to truly fill the garden and give us huge armfuls of stems to bring inside.
We can have colour in January and February, but on the whole, it’s on a miniature scale; come the daffodil in March, our garden starts its colourful, flowery performance in earnest.
My favourites are the delicate, close-to-the wild-species types, such as ‘Segovia’ and the unflatteringly named ‘Xit’ – both are small, not in any way overblown and as cool as a ballerina. I’m always on the lookout for multi-headed varieties, which are good for cutting and have a better-than-usual vase life.
They’re guaranteed mood enhancers, particularly when scented. In March, we have ‘Avalanche’, which can throw up stems 60cm tall – it’s been in the same place for 20 years and the bulbs must be enormous. ‘Geranium’ flowers now too, with one of the best scents in the plant world.
As colour in March is still quite minimal, fragrance is crucial.
Daphnes and sarcococcas give plenty, and hyacinths of course, which are flowering in the garden. I love the delicate, bluebell lookalike Hyacinth ‘Anastasia’ best of all. These all give scent in spades, but Perch Hill would be a lesser place without its beautiful daffodils.
