Ta-Da

Saturday the Best of Men built an enclosure for the AC unit so it doesn't get away.  At the moment said enclosure is drawing too much attention, but I plan to address that with plant material in a manner which I hope will become clear to me in time.  Here is what I did with my little spade and the intermittent help of my strapping spouse and equally strapping youth:

Before 

After:

That's the Golden Raindrops crab that is 6 feet from the house.  You can't tell here, but there are no major limbs (yet) facing the house.  So maybe I'll get away with it.  Stranger things have happened.  At some point I want the bed to be quite full with shrubs, but I don't want to go too crazy with perennials until that time arrives.  Maintenance is an issue.  Some of the mulch has cardboard under it.  My exterminator guy (mice) told me not to put it close to the house.  So it's mostly a couple feet back.  What do people do about weeds right up against the foundation, short of noxious sprays?  I use Roundup sparingly but I don't care for Monsanto, so am open to ideas.