Getting Rid of Nasty 2 ft High Weeds Once and For All

A few years ago after we moved in to our house I thought I’d be a lovely-productive-helpful wife and weed the front flowerbeds. I should pause here to tell you that I’d never done anything like this ever before. I’d never pulled a weed; I’d never mowed the lawn; I’d never planted any real plant in my life. So we move into our house and I go out to weed the front flowerbeds. After tugging and pulling and tugging and pulling some more I end up deciding that I don’t care if it is worse in the long run to just cut them off at the ground instead of pulling up the weeds root and all, I was tired and so I just cut them all off at the ground.

Later my husband asked why there was a pile of cut daylily plants out in the back. The only answer I could give was that I had been “weeding.”

Since that fiasco I have hardly set foot outside in our front natural areas. Some of it is probably due to my lack of desire to be outside for more than ten minutes, but most of it is probably due to a fear that if I tried to do something to make my yard more enjoyable it would more likely than not be the wrong way to do it.

Now that Julianna is officially a toddler who loves being outdoors (and I am a mother who loves even more the little clean-up that comes from letting my toddler play outdoors) we spend a lot more time outside in the yard. And with that I have realized over the last couple of months just how atrocious our landscaping maintenance really has been.

Over the weekend we have been trying to do something about that fact. Hopefully our efforts will redeem ourselves (even the slightest bit would help) in our neighbors’ eyes and we will no longer be the lazy people who live in the house on the corner.

Today we weeded the flowerbeds by the house. We also pruned the shrubs in the flowerbeds against the house and hauled off the limbs. Jonathan sprayed insecticide on the yard and watered the grass. He then knocked down part of the front porch railing that was completely rotting off. Tomorrow we are going to remove the ancient mulch and ugly scraps that are left and put down some sort of replacement for that in those flowerbeds against the house.

We also worked on a natural area in the back yard today. We bought something like this to put around the edge of the side natural area to contain the new dirt that Jonathan got a week ago and spread there. Tomorrow we will plant new flowers there.

We have yet to get started on the largest natural area in the front yard. Having a toddler makes that one especially difficult since we live on a corner and that area is the closest to both roads. My kind mother is coming over tomorrow to help keep an eye on Jules so that we can weed that area (more like pull up small oak trees as my cousin would say) and then as we dig holes and plant my new rose garden. (BTW can someone please explain to me why rose bushes are $25??!!) We might possibly edge that one too (if we ever get that far) (and if we decide to give up our right arm and leg to pay for all of those edging blocks).
(Enough with the parentheses already! I KNOW!)

I hope to have some before and after pictures tomorrow.

Now aren’t you motivated to go work outside?