Creating A Cottage Garden Part 1.5?

A couple weeks ago I started my cottage garden by prepping the area, placing statuary and buying plants. I then put the newly purchased perennials in the ground and was ready to split and add additional plants from my front garden. But when I saw my front garden, I realized how overgrown it had become. It had been neglected for almost two years because of our renovation, landscape delays, and just trying to get everything back together. The gardening was just last on my list. Before I could think about going any further with my new cottage garden, I had to deal with this first. Thus, the reason for the title of the blog.

You can see how overgrown it is.

One of the reasons for the overgrowth is this invasive groundcover. It has been my nemesis for years! If any of you know what the name of this groundcover is, could you let me know? Better yet, if you know how to get rid of it! I would appreciate it!

My garden weapons! I mean tools…

Drat you groundcover! Usually, I can keep it under control as long as I am vigilant about it, but this is something else altogether.

This was me for most of the weekend. Kneeling and pulling, kneeling and pulling, on and on and on!

Then pushing and dumping and more pushing and dumping! You better believe I was sore the next day!

I was making headway, but at this point I needed to get off the ground.

I switched gears and tackled my forsythia bush.

I like my bushes to have more of a tree form for two reasons. It allows you to plant underneath it and it also gives it interesting architectural detail.

This was just the beginning. There was another whole pile added to this. I may have cut half the bush off!

I thought I would add a picture of what it looks like in the spring. It is really beautiful against the backdrop of arborvitae.

After spending most of the weekend working outside, I managed to get half of the front garden and the forsythia bush trimmed. I will finish it this week and start moving some plants to the cottage garden!