Three weeks ago, I decided to do something about the abundance of weeds at the front of my house. Doing that made me realize that I've got A LOT more weeds to take care of, and that this would be an ongoing summer project. On the agenda for today was to tackle more areas that needed some attention. But first, I took my usual stroll around the yard to see what was happening.

The Eleanor Tabor Indian Hawthorn is, somehow, still alive, and appears to be turning green. This plant hasn't been happy with any of the decisions I've made to this point. Maybe this time I'll finally get it right.

I've still got iris blooms in the yard, even though they're winding down for the season.

Yellow Flag Iris blooms.

The Joe Pye Weed (R) is making its annual appearance. The Yucca Color Guard (L) confuses me because I can never tell if it's alive. The stalks standing straight up in the center of the plant lead me to believe it is alive, but I'm not sure.

The Goldmound Spirea look great !

They've been blooming very well for the last few years.

Goldmound Spirea.

Yellow Flag Irises.

Yellow Flag Irises.

Yellow Flag Irises.

I've got a couple of flowers on the Coronation Gold Yarrow.

The gladioli still continue to grow tall. Hopefully, a strong storm won't blow them over.

I'm seeing white flowers on the Husker Red Beardtongues.

Husker Red Beardtongues.

Husker Red Beardtongue flowers.

I can thank the yard maintenance staff for doing a good job.

I spotted something interesting, (other than the abundance of weeds), on the Bridal Wreath Spirea at the mailbox.

I appear to have one very confused bloom that has arrived a few weeks late.

The Yellow Flag Irises are winding down for the season.

Today's project involved pulling more of the abundance of weeds that have gradually started to take over the yard. This is something I have been neglecting for a while, and it shows ! I started with one area of the yard that has needed some attention for a while. A few years ago, I tried to create some definition around the driveway azaleas by separating them from what passes for grass, which turned out ok. I also tried to get rid of some of the border grass that can be seen growing under the first azalea cluster in the photo above. And it's obvious how well that worked.

My goal for today was to continue work on the dividing line, but this time on both sides of the azaleas. The side of the line seen in the photo above looks decent. But the line on the other side doesn't exist. The tall border grass has basically taken over. I broke out the gloves, trowel, and bucket to see what I could accomplish.

The photo above is of the area in between the first and second azaleas. While creating a line by removing the border grass, I uncovered what looks like another azalea ! It doesn't seem to be part of the azalea next to it. But it also doesn't seem to be a separate plant either, if that makes any sense. Either way, I cleared the border grass out of the way to try and give it some space.

I continued moving back the driveway removing border grass and creating a dividing line.

At some points, the border grass had spread up against the azalea. I cleared an area to give everyone some space.

Since I was pulling weeds, I headed over to the other side of the yard to try and pull whatever I could see that was growing among all of the border grass. I say "try," because there were a lot more weeds over here than I anticipated. This is something I'll have to pay more attention to in the future.

Since I did some work on the left side of my front steps three weeks ago, I attacked the right side today. This side wasn't nearly as bad as the other side, and was finished rather quickly.

I'm not sure what the tree seen in the photo above actually is, (maybe some kind of Holly ?). It was in place when I moved in, and I haven't done a whole lot with it since.

It suddenly dawned on me while removing weeds and border grass that I could treat this area like I do with the other trees in the yard. With all of the weeds gone, I carved out a small circle.

I then filled in the circle with red mulch, only because I had enough left over to fill the space.

Even though the red mulch doesn't fit with the rest of the pattern, I think it looks fine.

And as long as I'm weeding and circling, I decided to do the same thing with the Woodlanders Hardy Bottlebrush next to the driveway.

Some leftover black mulch filled in this spot quite well.

Finally, I headed out to the mailbox to do something about the abundance if weeds and border grass I mentioned earlier at the Bridal Wreath Spirea.

I planted the spirea along with six Javelin Rush ornamental grass plants in this spot back in 2013. It was great to discover that the Javelin Rush grass is still alive. Hopefully, removing the weeds and giving it some space will be beneficial.

Here is where I found the border grass encroaching the most, especially around the base of the spirea. Seeing this made me wonder if that is why it hasn't bloomed with as much intensity in recent years.

I created a dividing line for the border grass and used the rest of the leftover black mulch to make things look nice.