POCATELLO — Spring in Southeast Idaho is no slave to a calendar. Wind and cooler than average temperatures Saturday didn't stop scores of people from participating in a spring cleanup effort in Pocatello or taking advantage of a “Flower Power” sale at Town & Country Gardens.

    Norm Hill was one of about a dozen Portneuf Valley Pride members who busied themselves picking up trash and sweeping sidewalks and medians where Center Street goes under Interstate 15.

    “It's amazing,” Hill said about the trash than had been carried against the sage covered hillside next to the Maverik gas station. “People throw a lot of fast food stuff out of their cars and the wind blows it over here.”

    Hill has been participating in volunteer cleanup efforts for years and he knows that fast food packaging and disposable cups lead the litter world.

    Other members of Valley Pride group were stacking filled garbage bags along a fence for pickup. One woman held up a baggie containing an odd-shaped object and asked Jay Colonel what it was.

    “Just hold onto it until the K9 dog shows up,” Colonel said with a smile.

    While cleanup efforts were going on in pockets all over the city, at Town & Country Gardens on Hyde Avenue people anxious to start planting filled the parking lot. It was the business's annual “Flower Power” event. A “wheel of fortune” was set up so children and adults could take a chance at winning plants, hotdogs, soft drinks or ice cream cones.

    Employees were dressed in bright tie-died T-shirts for the event.

    “It's been keeping us moving the past two days,” assistant greenhouse manager, Dawn Williams said. “People are trying to get into spring.”

    Although the greenhouse was packed with colorful flowers, garden vegetables were the leading seller.

    “Everyone is doing a vegetable garden,” Williams said.

    Customer Dari Willey and her son, Carson, were taking advantage of blooming plants.

    “We have a new home so we're anxious to see what already there and will come out of the ground and we want to add to it,” Willey said. “We're very excited for spring.”

    According to the University of Idaho Extension Service, Pocatello averages about 117 frost-free days each growing season. Gate City residents can feel lucky if they look at the folks in Stanley which is north of Sun Valley. Those people experience less than 20 days each year without a visit from Jack Frost.