March: garden and home jobs for this month

March is the month the garden starts asking for attention again, though how much depends heavily on where you are. In the south, the soil is often workable and growth has visibly restarted by the middle of the month; further north, particularly in Scotland and upland areas, the ground can still be cold and wet well into April, so treat these dates as a guide rather than a fixed calendar.

Lawn

If the lawn has come through winter with a layer of dead grass and moss sitting on the surface, this is the point to remove it by scarifying (raking out the thatch so air, water and feed can reach the roots). Wait until the grass is actively growing and the ground has firmed up after any waterlogging. A first cut on a high blade setting is usually possible from mid-March in milder areas, but if the lawn is still soft underfoot, leave it for a few more weeks rather than risk compacting the soil.

Beds, borders and seed sowing

Hardy annuals and many vegetable seeds can go into the ground or into pots outdoors now, but tender plants raised on a windowsill or in a greenhouse still need hardening off (acclimatising them gradually to outdoor temperatures) before they go out permanently. A late frost in March or even April is common across most of the UK, so keep fleece or cloches to hand for anything you have already planted out.

Roses and shrubs

Late March is the usual window for pruning roses in most of England and Wales, cutting back to an outward-facing bud to encourage a strong, open shape. In colder parts of the north and in exposed gardens, it is worth waiting until the worst of the frosts have passed before pruning.

Outside the house

Winter weather is usually harder on the building than on the garden, so this is a sensible month to look over what the cold and wet have done. Worth checking before anything else:

• Guttering and downpipes for leaves and debris that built up over winter, which can cause overflow onto walls below
• Fascia and soffit boards for cracking, peeling paint or gaps where birds or damp could get in
• Pointing on exposed brickwork for cracks, since a wet winter often reveals mortar that frost has already loosened
• The area around the damp-proof course (the barrier low in the wall that stops rising damp) for soil, mulch or debris piled up against it, which can bridge the barrier and let damp through

These checks can wait until next week, but they are worth doing before growth in the garden makes them harder to reach or see. For a fuller run-through of what to look at on the house itself, see home maintenance, and for the garden side of things, garden maintenance covers the year in more depth. If you are working out what can wait and what cannot, February's jobs are worth checking too, in case anything was left unfinished.