"Just when do you start? Soil condition, not a calendar, marks time in a perennial garden. We all know when the soil is awake by reading the plants' reactions. You'll notice indicators of this season, such as the blooming of cornelian cherry (Cornus mas) and sugar maple (Acer saccharum). Crocuses have finished flowering, daffodils have broken the surface, and some tulip leaves are 2 inches above the ground. Let other people nurse calendar fixations, curse weather reports, and groan about spring not coming -- you watch the plants for the good news, because they never fail to advise."

"Follow landscaper Janet Macunovich as she spends a year caring for a world-class perennial garden. Her experiences and tips easily translate to your own flower bed, while her month-by-month maintenance schedule will keep you on the gardening track throughout the year."

"When spring does come, most of us are at least a little bit out of shape, out of sorts, and not accustomed to working out in the weather. Even after limbering up with some late-winter pruning, it's tough to contemplate putting knee to ground. The weather report on any given day in April may repeat the numbers from a day last November. We may have worked outside in shirt sleeves on that November day but recoil from the same conditions now. We wait, assuring ourselves that all of spring is yet to come, lots of time to whip the yard into shape."

"Plants are not so fickle. On frostless days in late winter, roots grow, sap rises, and new vegetative buds prime for action. In early spring, green swells and builds like cumulus clouds stacking up in front. Trees, shrubs, perennials, and weeds are all included. The gardener who misses a ride on the crest of this weather system risks a whole season of catch-up."

"My first step "on the clock" in this project was loading my tools into a wheelbarrow for the walk out to the bed. I brought my standard spring kit."

" in a one-gallon plastic bag, and a garden diagram and pencil inside a clear plastic page protector."

"The beauty of early spring is the uncluttered playing field -- just you, the barely sprouted perennials, and the weeds. Clear away the
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