[Marilyn]

Well, I mentioned it in another thread, but we removed our Christmas lights from the yard this morning & hubby got carried away and we also trimmed the trees and the crepe myrtles and hauled all the brush to the county brush site along with the Christmas tree. I just hope I'm not sunburned. My skin feels a little warm, so I may have gotten a bit too much sun.

His next outdoor project will be the flower beds, and yes, we will look like the Clampets for a while, too, just hope the neighbors don't complain too much.

We don't know what the sterilizer is that hubby uses, but it's some kind of pellets. It is tilled into the soil and the soil is left for 30 to 45 days before you can plant anything in it.

He did this when we built our home 5 years ago, and we have had very little problem with weeds or grasses in the beds. The weeds we do have are now increasing in quantity, so this is why he thinks it's time to sterilize again. After it's done, all he will have to do is hit any little bits of weed or grass with a squirt of Roundup. No heavy weeding needs to be done. It's really nice. We don't eat anything grown in the sterilized soil, it's for decorative shrubs only, and they grow very well in the soil after this is done. I kinda think the sterilizer may be a super fertilizer that burns the weeds and grasses to death & discipates enough to plant things in it over the 30 days or so. All the shrubs looked really nice and actually grew larger than some of them were supposed to. This may be why our beds are so overgrown.