SOUTH BEND — Volunteers broke out their work gloves and pruning shears to do some spring cleaning Friday morning at Leeper Park in South Bend in celebration of Arbor Day.

A main focus of the sprucing was in the historic Rose Garden that is located northeast of Riverside Drive and North Michigan Street.

"We have 200 bushes, and they need to be spring-pruned," Larry Clifford, who started the Resurrect the Roses group in 2015, said. "Each rose bush needs some work."

That work includes trimming out old growth to make room for fresh blooms while avoiding the thorns that can turn a green thumb red.

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The group, which usually has about five or six volunteers, got some help from the Caldwell Banker Real Estate Group's Local Love Committee, which organized the cleanup.

"We kind of blended Earth Day and Arbor Day together and invited agents, their families and the public out," Kylie Robey, the leader of the Local Love Committee, said.

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Around a dozen volunteers were joined by the South Bend Venues Parks and Arts department, which supplied the tools and equipment to make the cleanup possible.

Tulips, daffodils and other flowers are blooming in the park now, but the real show starts in about a month.

"In early June, the roses will bloom," Clifford said. "We will have tens of thousands of roses this year."