Meaning in Context – What Does ‘In the Ground’ Mean?

"Whole" here is used literally: the entire thing, the undivided unit. The "whole picture" means "everything you can see".

I presume the characters here are women. One has bought a new bag, and she is saying that carrying this bag will make her look more attractive to men, even though a man would be unlikely to say, "wow, that's a very pretty bag". Men "respond to the whole picture, even if they don't know why". That is, a man will see a woman with all the facets that go into her appearance -- her shape, her hair style, her clothes, and, yes, her bag -- and make a judgment about how pretty she is, without thinking of the individual components.

One could debate if that's true, but this is a forum about grammar and not dating advice.

I'm seeing these questions a ton. Frankly I wouldn't worry about it very much, because people will ask these questions imprecisely. They will not mean exactly two hours. They will not really care whether you're counting this hour, or the last hour. Different people will have different opinions about what the phrase means.

If I were to ask the question, I would mean what have you done from 17:40 to 19:40, e.g. the preceding 120 minutes, because I don't think of the day's 24 hours as an immutable construct.

The most important thing when answering this question is to consider the context in which it was asked. Give the information most relevant to the person asking the question. If it is a question that is precise, as in you're a lawyer being asked for a bill by hours, then you will need to answer precisely.

If it is a question in which the timeframe is approximate, like a doctor is asking you "what did you eat in the last two hours?", then if you ate a rotten tuna sandwich two hours and 30 minutes ago, you should absolutely mention that, because rotten fish could explain your medical symptoms.