St. Patrick’s Day is the traditional time for planting peas in my area, but I’ve only managed to actually plant them on that date once in the past 10 years.

The soil is still very wet around here and I think it’s too early to work in it without big clumps of clay for the primary result. 

Plus, I have yet to get my composted leaves spread in the garden. 

So, I will wait a few more weeks to get in the veggie garden and, for now, I’ll concentrate on the perennial beds.

I have four main perennial areas at our place. 

• One is in the front yard along both sides of the driveway (this picture is of part of that bed last July)
• Another surrounds the veggie garden fence
• The third is a shade garden next to our ridiculously small water feature
• The fourth is a hummingbird garden outside our dining room window. 

I let everything stand through the winter to provide habitat (and seeds) for birds and beneficial insects and now my main chore is cleaning all that out. 

I need to cut down my ornamental grasses and perennials, cut back my butterfly bushes and clean out all the neighbor’s leaves that managed to find their way in there over the winter. 

It will take me a good day or two to get it all done, but I love how it looks when this Spring Cleaning is complete.

So much promise is waiting just underneath the soil – spring is such fun.