Breaking ground.

The digging has started and I've already gotten quite a bit accomplished on day one of the front yard overhaul.  The path cutting through the large front border is going to be about 4 feet wide and the bed is about 12 feet across so it's quite a bit of space to work on.  One good part of digging up so many plants is that this had been an area I wasn't all that happy with.  Many of the plants had gotten too large for the space or ended up in either too much or too little sun.  I'm already liking how the plantings are going to look, I'm paying much more attention to bloom time and size now than I did over the last 11 years of planting in this bed.  The only thing I really hated to move was a big peony, I'm guessing it won't bloom this year, although I tried to get a large root ball on it in hopes that it won't go too badly into shock.

Everything between the X's must go.  There are two rows of these edging stones, the first one is almost level with the grass.  Winter interest is about zero here, hopefully with a little more thought it will look better in all seasons.

From the front you can see it's the largest plants in the bed that need to moved.  The Mexican Orange (Choysia ternata) has grown huge in the few years it's been here but had a very small root ball for its size.  I never realized how good the foliage from this plant smelled until I started working around it.

 The Hydrangea 'Preziosa' (one of my favorite Hydrangeas) is now under the Dogwood tree.  I think it will be much happier there with a little afternoon shade.

 Somewhere in there are Allium bulbs and a Lupine, hopefully I can find them without doing any damage.  Most of the plants that were removed are in pots set in the flower bed, it shouldn't get too cold in the next few days and hopefully I'll get them planted by Friday.  I didn't realize I was being watched by Gracie while I was working until I uploaded the pictures, you can just see her face peeking out the window.

The plan for tomorrow will be to mark the area that will be the path with stakes and twine so that I can make it even, especially since it's right in front of our house.  My husband will never let me forget how I tried to make a path in our backyard, which I wasn't paying attention to as I worked, and it ended up being way too narrow and kind of silly looking. Tomorrow's weather looks like it should be another mild day with sun.