Yes, mulching will definitely cut down on the weeding, and it's also good for the soil and the plants you've put in. Wise choice! I prefer a shredded mulch to nuggets; I find that nuggets easily blow around or get washed out by rain, where the shredded/chipped variety stays in place better for me. We step directly from our raised patio into a mulched area, and don't find debris to be a problem unless I walk barefooted into the garden - it doesn't seem to cling to our shoes or sandals. It's not all that messy though; just needs a quick sweep every so often.

Cutting back does not make a shrub grow more. If it is so bad off it is sitting there without any leaves, amputation of what above ground growth it has managed to hang onto is not is not going to solve this lack of growth. If you take two sets of matching shrubs, cut one set back and not the other, dig them and weigh them after there has been enough time for the pruned ones to grow back the ones that were not pruned weigh more - because there is more of them to weigh. Pruning the others decreased the amount of volume they managed to add during the same period. "Pruning is always stunting" --Carl E. Whitcomb

It is not like Ma Nature is just sitting in the sky going, "oh some bare soil, I am putting weeds here." Weeds come from seeds. Most people let the weeds go for many years. Some weed seeds last for many years like even 60 years. If you don't have weed seeds in your soil, the only weeds you will get are ones that are blown in by the wind or brought in by birds. When you compost weeds with seeds you just add a lot of weed seeds right back again to your soil. When you let the weeds go to seed it is just the same as composting them or worse even. It only takes two weeks or less of inattention to weeding to cause weeds to seed. Once the soil is filled with weed seeds it is going be nearly impossible to remove them all. Even you mulch with heavy wood the seeds will break through that at some point. If you buy some compost that is not sterile it could have weed seeds. Weeds also come from your neighbors yard under your fence into your yard. It takes never ending work to keep weeds under control.

Glad this surfaced or I would never have seen it - would appreciate suggestions on what to when it comes time for us to sell. We live next door to a messy house. It was a bit tired looking when we moved in but has steadily gone downhill - way down. It's not abandoned, not in foreclosure, we (and another adjacent neighbor) have tried working with the owners to find solutions but have had no success. We've lived here 22 years, the messy owners have been here quite a bit longer than that. They are elderly but that is not the reason for the mess and disrepair and it does not appear financial resources are a problem - money is spent in other areas that are known to us, but not on the home. There is obviously some degree of mental illness, but nothing that would warrant intervention by an agency. The city has known about this forever. Periodically we and the adjacent neighbor have pushed the city to take action and some issues do get addressed, minimally. But the messy neighbor is a retired lawyer and fights the city endlessly on code verbiage, finding other homes with similar 'violations' that have not been cited. As an example, he finds homes with parkway plantings that are technically against city ordinance as evidence that he should not be cited or fined. His example home will have a grass parkway with city planted trees and owner planted flowers in a bed around the trees. Messy neighbor's parkway has no grass, weeds and invasive ivy overgrowing the sidewalk, multiple owner planted trees that create safety issues seeing oncoming traffic on street and sidewalk. The city limbs up the trees when we complain, the owner plants more each spring and it goes round and round. He has the time and mental acuity to fight the city - it costs him nothing and *seems* to be somewhat of a game. The city has other places to spend money and will not push this as a result. There is no doubt in my mind it would cost a fortune, result in very negative press and PR and likely get nowhere if it actually ended up in court. We always thought we'd outlast them, they would move to a condo or retirement home of some sort and new owners would clean things up before we would need/want to sell. But that has not happened and we are planning to market our home in the near future. The housing market is what it is and we'd have to deal with that regardless, but this neighbor adds to the difficulty. Any ideas???