A lawn, a meadow and a prairie are three different things. Try and find out which one you two can agree on. There are also degrees to how pristine a lawn needs to be. There are low growing grasses that don't need so much mowing by the way. No matter which of the three you chose there is no escaping lots of prep. work and at least some maintenance. There are also low growing flowers and forbs. I wouldn't worry too much about what the neighbors think but that's just me and it sounds like your own preferences are not exactly being expressed. I have seen some very beautiful native plantings in place of lawns but they still require work and lots of weeding and mulching. Don't know which you purchased but a lot of "wildflower" packets are loaded with annuals, weed seeds and invasives. Tilling would probably make it worse. Your imported soil or your mulch may have been loaded with weed seeds as well. Some of the wildflowers also don't look great for the first year or two so maybe there are a few gems hiding in there which, hopefully, don't get overwhelmed by dandelions and such. Mowing will encourage grasses and discourage other plants to some degree.

Most of what I'm doing is not exactly eradication, it's more trying to control rampant growth. I'm trying to limit Virginia creeper and meadow phlox to a reasonable section of the garden. Virginia creeper is fine in the woodier areas, but not everywhere where it can trip unwary passersby (and me) and smother other plants. Meadow phlox too is wonderful in bloom and the hummingbirds love it but the roots become deep and broad and woe to other more modest plants in its vicinity. A byproduct of this selective removal came yesterday when I started pulling out the meadow phlox under a rose where I was trying to establish some new daylilies. Mixed in with the phlox were were some plants with tiny white flowers that I'd never seen before. I left them there thinking they were native but I checked the Connecticut Botanical Society's Wildflower site and I think they were the very invasive Garlic Mustard which I've never seen before. I say were because I watered them this morning and then carefully pulled them all out along with their roots. I put them in a bag along with the poison ivy seedling I found the day before. Like PM2 I use the pooper-scooper technique of grabbing the poison ivy plant with the plastic bag on the hand and then inverting the bag to cover the plant, which gets inserted in another bag and sent to the trash. Claire

Vaporvac: Thank you !! I post info. here to help myself & family toward better health. The kelp & iodine info. posted in Feb 2017 helped me to get down to 118 lb. in August 2017. I always snack 2 hours before bedtime, and keep a diary of what's eaten before bedtime and the quality of sleep. I notice that when I had Multigrain Cheerios before bedtime, my sleep quality was poor (zero dreams), plus icky chemical-acrid-after-taste. Then I bought gluten-free FREEDOM ancient grains (rice & corn & sorghum & buckwheat) imported from Australia .. and was surprised how improved my sleep was (with vivid dreams). Glyphosate is known to kill beneficial bacteria in the gut. Other effects are cancer, kidney and liver damage, endocrine/hormonal disruption, autism and depression. https://www.ecowatch.com/monsanto-glyphosate-cheerios-2093130379.html The tests conducted by Anresco were done on 29 foods commonly found on grocery store shelves. According to the report, glyphosate residues were found in: General Mills' Cheerios at 1,125.3 parts per billion (ppb) Kashi soft-baked oatmeal dark chocolate cookies at 275.57 ppb Ritz Crackers at 270.24 ppb Concerns about glyphosate comes as new research shows that Roundup can cause liver and kidney damage in rats at only 0.05 ppb, and additional studies have found that levels as low as 10 ppb can have toxic effects on the livers of fish. The U.S. has set the ADI for glyphosate at 1.75 milligrams per kilogram of bodyweight per day (mg/kg/bw/day) while the European Union has set it at 0.3. https://detoxproject.org/alarming-levels-of-glyphosate-contamination-found-in-popular-american-foods/ On the heels of the growing controversy surrounding glyphosate’s safety, this unique testing project that started in 2015, has found alarming levels of glyphosate in General Mills’ Cheerios and Honey Nut Cheerios, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, Raisin Bran and Frosted Flakes and PepsiCo’s Doritos Cool Ranch, Ritz Crackers and Stacy’s Simply Naked Pita Chips. https://s3.amazonaws.com/media.fooddemocracynow.org/images/FDN_Glyphosate_FoodTesting_Report_p2016.pdf Glyphosate Food Testing Results: (in parts per billion – ppb) General Mills Original Cheerios - 1,125.3 ppb Honey Nut Cheerios – 670.2 ppb – 14.5 Wheaties – 31.2 ppb Trix - 9.9 ppb Gluten Free Bunny Cookies Cocoa & Vanilla – 55.13* ppb Kellogg’s Corn Flakes – 78.9 ppb Raisin Bran – 82.9 ppb Organic Promise - 24.9 ppb Special K - 74.6 ppb Frosted Flakes - 72.8 ppb Cheez-It (Original) – 24.6 ppb Cheez-It (Whole Grain) – 36.25* ppb Soft-Baked Cookies, Oatmeal Dark Chocolate – 275.58* ppb Nabisco Ritz Crackers – 270.24 ppb Triscuit – 89.68 ppb Oreo Original – 289.47* ppb https://www.bestfoodfacts.org/glyphosate-in-food/

FWIW. I have used Glyphosate for several years, but always as "tool of last resort". I am not anti-chemical, as, after all, compost is a chemical cocktail, but I am always reluctant to use synthetic compounds. The manufacturers, even if they were 150% honest, CANNOT test their product to cover each and every possible scenario that the product could be used in. Even if they could, there is no way they can predict that it will NOT cause a problem 5/10/20 years down the track, as these are the timelines that cancers take to develop. A few years ago, while living in Australia, I had a discussion with a professional gardener, regarding Glyphosate. He was totally convinced that it was was harmless, to the extent that he was quite happy to prove his point, by drinking some of it in front of me. I have often wondered what happened to him. Fof