My gardening woes

I think there's something therapeutic about working in the dirt and making something grow. I've always enjoyed gardening and was kind of missing my little plots of dirt at our old townhouse where I'd do a small vegetable garden with some flowers. Although there's no space for a vegetable garden at our new house I did notice this small bed in the front where I could plant some flowers. The weather was finally nice this past Saturday so I figured while Tyler was napping I'd try to get this bed ready to plant some flowers. A few dead somethings were still in the bed along with this half dead bush. I quickly noticed a large infestation of rolly polly bugs (I don't know the scientific name) - probably the cause of the dead plants. If anyone has any tips on getting rid of these I'm all ears. I also noticed a lot of strange looking spiders as I yanked weeds but was grateful to be wearing gloves and long sleeves. When I finally started to cut back this bush so I could uproot it I was already feeling pretty creeped out by the bugs and spiders when I pulled back another part of the bush to see something slithering through the base of the plant. I squealed as I threw my gardening sheers down and took off across the lawn. I don't really know many of my neighbors yet and hope no one saw me. I'm sure it was just a little garden snake, but I told Andy I'm not going near that bush until he gets rid of it. So the half dead, half cut up bush remains in my front yard....until the snake is gone.