Who Needs Ya Anyway? I Have My Landscaping to Attend to!

My favorite outdoor (productive) activity lately is weeding. I know, that sounds strange. And no, Mom & Dad, I won't do the weeding at your house. Evidently, it only applies when the land is mine. So, I've taken to trying to be outside from a little after 5 (whenever I peel myself away from the computer screen) until it gets dark. I just love the warmth, the sunshine, and the homeowner feeling I get from actually doing outside work. I've been mowing the yard (haven't mowed it this week; I'm sure that activity is just around the corner again), watering the plants (and planting new ones), nursing the less-than-stellar ones back to life (hopefully), and weeding. Of all those things... well, except maybe mowing, but that's different somehow... weeding gives me the most immediate instant gratification. And yes, I like being redundant and repeating myself.

When you water a plant or change its dosage of sunlight or even feed it, it takes days, maybe weeks, to actually see if what you did made a difference. By this time, I know that impatiens do not like the SE Georgia afternoon/evening sun. Hydrangea don't love it, but they can take it as long as you keep 'em as much in the shade as possible and keep 'em wet. Geraniums, well, the jury's still out on them. The Lowe's tag says they'll do well in full sun; but I'm currently still holding a grudge against Lowe's tags, mostly for the impatiens debacle. Oh yeah, and that same Lowe's tag told me the daisies liked full sun too. They do much better inside with plate-glass-filtered sunlight. FYI. I even (somehow! ... miracle of miracles!) have the hibiscus plants coming back up. From nothing. Jon did his best to kill those things... even admits to intentionally TRYING to kill them when he "replanted" them for me... and the little devils are playing phoenix as we speak. Anyway, all this (and much more), I've learned over the course of several weeks/months of playing gardener. But you can't do anything to make a plant healthier or look better immediately... except remove the weeds that are making it messy.

It's back-breaking. I spent at least two hours stooped over tonight; and I grabbed & pulled untill my hand simply wouldn't close any more(I SWEAR the muscles just stopped gripping). I finished half of the back beds and the entirety of the front ones. (For some reason, I'm sure it has to do with the professional (read: expensive) work that went into the front beds while the back ones are my economical brain- (and back-) child, the front beds really don't grow a lot of weeds while the back ones are a weed hotbed!) And when I finish the rest of the back tomorrow, I'm going to love how it looks. I already love 3/4 of the landscaping around the house tonight. And nothing else I could've even attempted (short of replacing all the wimpy stuff with thriving shrubbery and/or spreading a few thousand bales of pinestraw) could've come close to improving the landscaping. Period.

Also... our neighbors are having their backyard sprinkler system put in, Dad. Mr. Shih (I'm going out on a limb and guessing how to spell it) still says he doesn't think they need it, but he says Mrs. Shih is insisting. I told her tonight... she's so right, it's not even funny.

Anyway, to illustrate my point about the back weed hotbed (and the one about how weeding makes 110% difference)...
Before:

After: