Some front yard mulching

I spend so much time in the backyard gardens, I tend to forget the front yard. It needs "a bit" of tidying. The main problem is this bed under the maple:

The mulch is pretty much gone, the soil is really dry, and the weeds are taking over. Time to do some weeding and freshen up the mulch!

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Most of the weeds are Ash tree seedlings, and there are a lot of them:

A few minutes with the scuffle hoe and most of the weeds are goners, although I didn't bother picking them all out of the bed. Doesn't look much better yet:

One problem here is I've got some plumbago groundcover that I'm hoping will establish, and it's mixed in with weeds. Believe me, the weeds far outnumber the plumbago stems:

Mainly the Ash tree and wood oats seedlings again, but you can't easily tell which leaves are plumbago, can you? Hand pulling it is then. Sigh.

After the weeds are mostly taken care of, it's time to add fresh mulch. This year I've decided to put down a thick layer of compost:

This should help loosen the soil here, and I've recently read that dry shade areas (such as under trees) are better mulched with fine-textured mulches like compost. I've forgotten the reasoning and need to find that article again... I think it was in the latest Fine Gardening magazine issue.

Mulch goes down, and it looks pretty nice. I can always add a layer of hardwood mulch later if I don't like how the compost works as a mulch. This is a "leaf and stick mold" compost by the way. It's the only readily available bulk compost I can get here, and I use it everywhere. At the very least it will improve the soil in this bed.

At the top of this last photo you can see the little brick walkway that moles have been burying.

It's really time to do something about this. So A bit of scraping with the spade, some prying up of bricks and levelling, and some collapsing of old mole tunnels and the job is done. A little water to clean off the remaining dust really helps too.

Looks pretty nice again I must admit. Now I wonder how long it we be before a mole ruins it again?