For the side question, I dug up a gaura in order to free it from unpullable grass, almost killed the little shrub, but it eventually returned, and so did the grass well rooted in the gaura's roots. So now I just pull what I can hoping to tire out the grass before it tires me out.
I probably do weed for an hour a week but it's pretty much arranged to not have to weed at all. All shrub clippings get mulched up and returned to the yard, in autumn leaves are repositioned where I don't want weeds to pop up in spring, and a Toyota pick-up truck load of clean compost costs very little except the labor of shoveling it all over the place. Some areas are so densely planted the weeds don't have a chance, like under the mixed hedge which is too dark for much of anything to grow though poppies do well at the shade-line so long as it's no nuisance that they lean over in the only direction for sun.
Areas unplanted are permitted to be as weedy as they like, and if I spread a garden into a weedy area, I lay down heavy cardboard and put steer manure on that and then plant it the following spring. If it's possible to make a hill, a new area I cover with a foot or two feet deep with half-finished mulch and tree branches, add some dirt, then the cardboard (and for loamy looks, inert composted steer manure) on top of that and then add a foot or so of good garden soil on top the next spring for a gardenable mound. All orchestrated to keep from weeding, yet a couple significan perennial gardens encircling the patio I just weed.
-paghat the ratgirl