A bit of cleanup around the outside of the house

Well, my new neighbors just moved in and the woman of the house immediately gets to work on making things look presentable on the outside.   Having the husband lay down some mulch, plant flowers, mow the lawn, mulch the dead leaves, etc…  Needless to say, after taking a look, I became a bit shameful of my flower bed.   I mean, it looked nice in the spring time with the daffodils growing and showing off their yellowy goodness, but that didn’t last long, and it also didn’t take long for the leaves to start sagging.   I had also bought some knockout rose bushes earlier this spring, but they are still young and haven’t bloomed yet (if they’ll bloom at all this year) and so the flower bed just looks like crap.   Here’s a picture for show

So, umm, yea, this could use a bit of tidying up.   And while I had the camera out, I figured I would take some shots of the little flowers I had in there as well

So, I cut down the daffodil leaves, put them in the front yard, weed eat the rest of the bad crap, and mulch the leaves using the lawnmower and dump them back into the flower bed. I figured that since I’m laying some mulch on top, they’ll make for some good compost underneath.   I had originally bought two bags, thinking that would be enough.  Nope!! Ended up going back and getting 4 more bags of the stuff to cover the bed with.  And on top of that, I still have some of the cut up leaves showing, but they’ll rot/dry away so I’m not too worried.   Not to mention that this is rubber compost, so I shouldn’t have to worry about this for a while!  So without further ado, here are the results.  Not perfect, but not too bad for a first timer.  Should look a lot better once the rose bushes get a bit bigger.