Location: Georgia
Many southern locations are blessed with huge oak trees but in March those trees are not so popular with gardeners. The days are warming up and by March (even this year with the wacky weather we’ve been having) there is seldom a frost danger now. Gardeners are anxious to begin planting as the garden stores are already filling with annuals, perennials and shrubs for early planting. Flower beds cleaned in late fall are just waiting for us to dig into the ground and add some new color.
Green tips of new leaves are appearing now on River Birch and shrubs are beginning to show new growth. The gardener’s instinct is to begin planting and March is the perfect time to sow seeds for annuals in beds prepared last fall. Those gardeners with large oak trees have learned to control the urge to plant until those trees shed their leaves and seed pods in March. Live oaks seem to hold their leaves until new leaves literally push the old ones from the tree, usually falling quickly in early to mid March but it seems like everything got a bit of a late start this year.
Planting beds before these trees lose their leaves is not a good idea. Removing oak leaves from a bed planted with tender new seedlings or annuals is a daunting task. The narrow leaves slip through tines of the rake and the small leaves seem to attach themselves to any growth in the beds. A blower will clear your flower beds of oak droppings but can break or damage plants growing there.
