Around the house: Not "Welcome to the Jungle" anymore

I have a love-hate relationship with weeding. On the one hand, I love the results. The plots looks so loved and cared for. I also get the satisfaction that I did something that day, instead of doing what I do everyday (sitting on the couch, watching TV). I even sort of like the healthy muscle soreness in my arms. It's almost like I worked out (which I sort of did)! But I hate the sore lower back. Or the bug bites and stabs from particularly vengeful plants that I end up covered with by the time I'm done. So maybe that's why our house was beginning to look something like this:

 *Not an actual picture of our house*

But this was the weekend I had enough. And I attacked. I ripped and dug and yanked. And I discovered the candytufts I planted a few months ago. And the azalea plant that I brought back from the brink with a little acidic plant food. I even found a flower that had shown up all on its own.

An Anderson's expert (read more about Anderson's here) identified the little guy as a Vinca, a flowering annual that likely was brought to our little plot by a bird. While we were at Anderson's we snagged some hardwood mulch (for $3.50 per bag) as well as some topsoil to fill in some holes that were bequeathed to us via the previous' residents' children. By the end of the weekend our front plot now looks like this:

Gorgeous! Though, it's hard to be amazed when you don't have a before. My bad. I guess I'm not the best blogger when it comes to that.