Teresa, I guess everyone is different in what they consider a 'successful' garden. I decided that if I nitpick every weed that comes along, I will spend all my time pulling weeds and never enjoy the flowers, and that is of course the main reason I have the garden-to enjoy the flowers. So to me even if the garden is not what I consider well maintained (weed free, mulched, pruned ect) as long as the flowers do ok that is all I really care about ultimately. I would rather have a larger garden with more variety even if I wasn't able to keep it maintained as well as I like.
