Upon Weeding the Parking Lot Garden

"Weeding" is a misnomer. We removed dandelions. 

Also, if we encountered any maple seedlings / trees, we removed those as well. Last year, we were more generous with maples thinking that if we selected the ones best positioned in the Parking Lot Garden - let's say one in the east, one in the central section and one in the west - they would eventually grow sufficiently to provide some welcome shade. This year we realized that, yes, shade was good - but - they would also produce massive amounts of seedlings and eventually overwhelm all our native plants. So, out went the maples.

We forgot to take a before picture as we always just want to get going. But here is the after picture. A bit bleak but definitely dandelion and maple free:

We noted that the native plants are starting to grow together and fill the open spaces that weeds inhabit. Weeds are pioneer plant that naturally inhabit open spaces where nothing else has started to grow or areas with weak plants (think lawns). Once other plants, healthy plants, enter the area, weeds will start to disappear. Here's a good example from today.

some dandelions - but - 

Yes, there were indeed some dandelions here prior to weeding, but, as you can see, the native plants are starting to flood the area. By next year, we should see very little open mulch.