Spring Garden Clean-up Begins

Sunday the temperature here in SE Wisconsin reached 57 degrees. Took advantage of the warm weather and near entire thaw of snow to start preparing beds for planting. This meant cleaning all the old plant debris from 70% of my beds that I neglected to remove last fall. Certain plants such as the echinachea I chose to leave to provide seed for the birds. Who knows if they really eat it. But otherwise the days just got away from last fall. I also pruned my rose bushes. They are looking pretty woody and brown. I hope they survived the negative 20-something cold spell we had in January. Also raked the leaves from the northeast rock garden and north facing borders on the front of the house. Noticed tulips starting to sprout in the south facing beds along the house. The buds on the Rhododendrons are small as I knew last fall. I was not as attentive to the watering when I should've been. It will be interesting to see if they blossom this year. I'm planning to plant my salad greens, radishes and few cold germinating ornamentals when I return from Texas early April. Excited for another season with many projects in the works!