If you want to invigorate established mid-late summer flowering perennials, March is a great time to lift and divide them and replant, discarding any non-productive old growth.
With all the fresh spring growth emerging, it is time to start cutting back and tidying any herbaceous perennials that you left up over the winter either to admire, or provide shelter or food for wildlife. A rather satisfying task, remember to leave some areas of the garden a little untidy as habitats for beetles, bugs and other insects.
Now that spring has sprung everything will be putting on growth including those pesky weeds. Far better to get in now and weed them out rather than let them establish themselves and multiply.
Prune your hydrangeas back to a good pair of emerging buds along each stem plus remove any dead, diseased or damaged growth. Remember the harder you prune the more you will encourage growth so if you wish to keep their growth within a more manageable size prune more lightly than if you wish to encourage more growth.
With the weather so mild and your soil warming up nicely plus retaining moisture, now is the perfect time to add a good thick mulch (50 - 75mm) of organic matter to its surface to feed it, hold in the warmth and prevent erosion. Take care not to touch the emerging stems or shoots. Melcourt Farmyard is ideal for this task.