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Landscapers Working Overtime To Repair Damage From Harsh Winter

CHICAGO (CBS) -- It was a gorgeous spring day Monday, but the plants and flowers seem to be lagging behind.

In this Original Report, CBS 2's Mai Martinez looks at how landscaping crews are trying to fix that.

The winter was so long and harsh that some evergreens even started dying, and that means landscaping crews have their hands full this Spring.

Landscaping crews are working day in and day out to undo the damage last winter did, and boy do they have their work cut out for them.

On Monday, Clarence Davids & Company was tackling a roof-top deck.

"We're having to replace 35 of the roses over there, which is probably 1 in every 2," said Allie Corbett of Clarence Davids & Company. "We're seeing a lot more dead things.

And it's like that across the city, which means big business for landscaping companies.

"It's pretty much non-stop phone calls and people want to do nice things and get rid of the dead stuff," said Jennifer Crump with Christy Webber Landscapes.

Now that the weather is better, many are booked solid for weeks.

"Everyone wants their flowers in," said Corbett.

That includes the city of Chicago. Christy Webber Landscapes handles a lot of the park district's contracts.

"It's been a really slow spring. The soil temperatures have been very low, so grass seed isn't germinating and growing. The trees have been very late to leaf out. The bushes have a lot of dead on them from the winter," said Crump. "We're just going to have to work really fast the next two weeks to get caught up."

So how far back did this winter set us, the experts say about two and a half to three weeks. They say what we're seeing in Chicago now, is usually what we'd see at the end of April or beginning of May.

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