A start on the master plan

I took advantage of a wonderfully-cool Sunday morning, and made a small start on my flower bed master plan.

The driveway flower bed had two of these little shrubs:

Not a bad-looking little shrub, but in the four weeks we've been here, they've already started looking gangly and unkempt.

I have no time or tolerance for something that needs trimming that often and offers nothing in return, and my goal is more flowers in this bed, so they had to go.

I trimmed most of the branches off and then dug them out with a spade. Now I have two open areas, ready for perennials.

While I'd love to rip out all of the shrubs at once, I won't have the time or all of the new plants this fall, so doing one area at a time like this is going to be my best option. Patience, I have to keep telling myself.

I learned something while working in this bed: the rock cairn in the middle is pretty and functional.