April rain in the Illinois valley comes warm and unhurried and turns every bed dark. S-Eades and Sons Landscaping opens the Pekin season in that soft ground — landscaping and lawn work, beds cleared and edged, mulch laid, the first mowings once the grass has something to give. Shaded yards on the older streets want a different touch than the open ones out toward the fields, and it shows in how they are cut. Through summer it is mowing, trimming and cleanup on a schedule you could set a clock by. By the time the season closes out, the yard has a shape it will hold on its own.