The love-hate relationship with my yard

**I found this post saved in my drafts from a year ago. Apparently I never published it. It's kind of funny so I'm posting it now.

Let me take you on a journey back in time to see the very interesting life of my landscaping. I know that you're exuberant at the thought of it!

Day 1

This is what it looked like when we moved in. You can't see much but this is the best I had! It was well taken care of but I hated the mulch. It's weird how much things have grown since this picture.

Month 6

We got to work by pulling up the dead annuals, weeding, and replacing the mulch. I would have never thought to use black mulch until our neighbors did and it looked amazing. I love how it makes the colors of the plants pop and the fact that it matches the black trim of our house is pretty rad too. I loved my yard on this day.

This picture was taken before the 110 degree summer killed every living thing known to man. Since I have no green thumb, I'm having a hard time giving my plants the will to live and work through their heat exhaustion.

Sometime between month 6 and year 1..

Weeds grew out of control. Our plants died. Our cannas never grew. Our monkey grass grew everywhere. We discovered our black mulch is the cause to our ant problem. Apparently ants love to burrow in black mulch, not just ours. (So we're replacing it...)

Year 1

We pulled the weeds. Cut back all of the plants for regrowth. Planted Golden Sedum, Russian Sage, and Purple Ice Plant in front and along the side. Crossed our fingers that they grow beautifully and that our Silver Mound Artemisia will come back and be as soft as ever. Changed our mulch to some awesome Eucalyptus mulch that is supposed to be better for your flowers and keep insects away.

Please can I be done for awhile?

Stay tuned for our next project of sanding and painting our exterior trim around our windows.

**Update**

Our yard is pathetic. The heat killed most of our grass and plants and flowers. Nothing bloomed this year. Our mulch is.. barely there. I figured why buy a bunch of mulch when everything's dead? So I'll wait until next spring to remulch. I did atleast go out and weed the side of our house so it wasn't crazy out of control... not that it matters because it all looks horrible. I'm really tempted to rip out all of our plants and flower beds.. or atleast turn it in to a rock garden and just have shrubs or something because I don't have the patience and time to constantly work in my yard.

Oh, and we never did that whole sanding and painting the trim. We should but we haven't. Our house has so many things that need to be done to it.