Ripping things out. Blackberries had overtaken everything, and choked it out, trees were growing almost prostrate, trying to reach out for the light. What isn't being ripped out is being pruned back drastically. What survives, survives.
It's starting over, albeit with some mature plantings that didn't exist before.
It's about restoring some of the charm and details, the little barrel pond under the Coral Bark Japanese Maple (the water seeped out just enough to keep the maple well watered), the pathways... everything is gone, obscured or disintegrated.
Some years of neglect have that effect. Now it's about the ruthless breaking of eggs to make the omelet. And that brush pile marks the beginning.
Update: A few years later, we finally got rid of that pile. Should have done it as we went, but didn't, and once the pile got so big and so entangled it became a massive undertaking to disassemble it. So many truckloads of greenwaste later (couldn't burn it, because there's been no rain and thus no permissive burn days), it is clear, and a nice lawn is in its rightful place. Yes, the pile did affect our ability to enjoy the space, but we were busy and working, and putting it off 'til later' just became a long time.
