Cleaning the Front Yard

My friend and I worked the front yard for three weekends through October 26 to get it cleaned up.  The front sidewalk area had gotten particularly bad because of intense rains, regular irrigation, and a water leak up the street which ran down my sidewalk for at least one day.  So we edged and dug up all the dirt on the sidewalk, which took two garbage day loads to remove (and still isn't completely removed).  My friend poured 2 gallons of vinegar into the cracks to help kill weeds.  I think I mowed the lawn twice in October alone (though the first might have been last few days of September).  In the Jul-Oct timeframe, I mowed the back yard completely at least twice also.

We have started removing Palmie.  Palmie apparently didn't root well, and in September she was leaning half way sideways after a strong wind.  Palmie's leaves had grown too big for the weak and cracked root structure to support.  Palmie will have to be replaced.  She had not been installed by a tree or nursery specialist.  Next time I will get the nursery to install the palm.  I also wanted the palm installed further back to get a better view when backing car out of driveway.  Because of broken roots it was not possible to transplant palmie.  Also the nursery won't do that, and tree specialists are very expensive, like $250/hr.  Much cheaper, and less risky even under the best circumstances, simply to get a new palm and let the nursery install it.  Only problem is our sentimental attachment, and after seeing the sad truth of palmie's poor rooting my friend was able to get over that.