For the past 10 days, except those days that got rained out, I've been spending an hour or two doing yard work - mostly pulling/digging out weeds, including grass that has no business growing in my planting areas. The nine photos, below, show the results. Note the lack of fresh mulching materials. As Bogie and I lamented in comments to her latest posting, it's "impossible" to find good mulch these days (ground pine bark, with no additives).
The first photo, below, left, is the streetward end of the planting area (extended from along our driveway) that is nearest to the woods. I've not included the whole area in the photo as I've not yet de-weeded the whole area: only the creeping phlox that Bogie can tell you really needed some work when she was here. See, Bogie? I didn't get all of the dead leaves out of the patch, but the weeds are gone!
The second photo, below, right shows the planting area that is next toward the street. Except for the stuff next to Freds "wonderful" fence, I've never planted anything there because it is my "dumping" area. That is where a load of imported dirt may be dumped, or (when it was available), 20 each 3-cubic-foot bags of mulch was stacked.


The third and fourth photos, below, show the planting area next toward the street. The photo on the right concentrates on the small patch of fern (or it may be wild yarrow?) that I kept, having pulled a gazillion plants of it that had been interspersed with the sedums next to the fence in the left photo.


The fifth photo, below, left, shows the planting area next nearer to the street. That's where I fought the sumacs so valiantly last year. There were about a dozen sprouts of sumac in that area and within the clumps of daylilies in the right hand photo, below - and in the area shown in the above, right photo. Nothing serious.
Note in the sixth photo, below, right, there is a small, volunteer crepe myrtle bush that came up at the edge of the driveway last year. I had thought it would surely be winter-killed, but it lived.


The seventh photo, below, left shows the above-mentioned crepe myrtle bush after I transplanted it to a spot near the bush that I had transplanted last year (farther from the camera and to the right of a daylily clump in this photo). The bushes that are not crepe myrtles are dwarf burning bushes.
The eighth photo, below, right shows the planting area next closer to the street. That area is mostly planted in irises (mostly to the left of the photo, unfortunately) with a scattering of bachelor's buttons and sedum. Already, several seedling touch-me-nots have sprouted, the original source of which was a mystery a few years ago. The next, and last, planting area that is bordered by the street and our driveway, will not be shown. I did pull Fred's Bermuda grass out of it, but the Blue Chip junipers took a beating this winter and are not very showy.

This morning, I had intended to work on the planting area nearest the woods; but, when I got out there, I decided to do the area from which the North Star Cherry had been removed when it experienced extreme winterkill a year ago. To the left of it is the rose garden, but I've still to dead-head the roses.

Although I came inside to rest for a bit after my first hour of work, this morning, I must get back outside to work on edging the lawn at the street curbing. Woman's work is never done!
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