Congrats on the Hibiscus sprouts!
You just had to mention the workbench, didn't ya?
I clean it off constantly, but it is the only decent horizontal surface in there, and it invites clutter. My only garage item accomplished over the last few days was to bring the mower in for its spring service. (Note: anyone in the Knoxville area - Mayo is having its early equipment service special.) That freed up some floor space, if only temporarily.
It sounds like you got a good jump on your spring cleanup and the first sore muscles of the year! I got to play in the yard Sunday afternoon and most of yesterday. Just general cleanup of leaves and loose stalks, several bags worth. It's early yet, with plenty more hard freezes to come, so the only thing I really cut back was the ornamental grasses, although I'm desperate to severely prune back roses, crape myrtles, butterfly bushes and all the scruffy perennials. The grasses were well past the point of "interesting winter structure" and cutting them down now means not chasing the broken stalks all around the yard for the next few weeks. We used to live across the street from someone with a huge stand of pampas grass, and she never cut it back, ever. In late winter the old stalks would shatter and get blown all around the neighborhood.
Most of the visible plants are in decent shape, although winter weary. There's new growth at the base of some perennials. Maybe the plants know something about spring's arrival that we don't. It was a good chance to check out the "bones" of the yard and to appreciate the bark of the Sango Kaku Japanese maple and the redtwig dogwood. There are a couple of bedlines that need to be fixed where the mulch sloshed over onto the grass, and the mulch needs replenishing in several areas, but overall not bad.
