A couple of early-bird azaleas were in bloom during this project.

"Before" photo number one on Feb. 5 shows the view down the front walk.

"Before" photo two--see those hedges? One goal of the project is to get rid of them.

"Before" photo three--the bench is also on the move a little bit.

"Before" photo four--the view from the end of the house looking back toward the garage. Another objective of the project is to remove landscape timbers.

One of the first things to do was to cut those hedges off near ground level and get them out of there. This shows where the garden path is moving to.

A front-and-center view of the now-gone hedge space.

The bench temporarily in its new position up against the house. That finished the day on Feb. 5.

I took Feb. 6 off from the project and went to St. Augustine and, among other things like shopping, checked out the conditions at Vilano Beach.

Picking up on Saturday, Feb. 12, I raked, weeded, and cleared up against the house for the first course of weed block fabric and mulch.

All done on Feb. 12. The remaining hedge stumps in the foreground get dug up tomorrow.

Front and center at the end of work on Feb. 12. Dana said the bench needed to be leveled after seeing this photo.

It took a few hours on Feb. 13, but I managed to get the remaining nine stumps dug up and many of the roots cleared out as well.

A couple of small stepping stones under the low end of the bench brought it to almost-perfectly level. That completed work on Feb. 13.

While all this was going on, the Carolina Jasmine on my fence went into full bloom. It smells like licorice over there. They haven't been swarmed with bees yet though.

Feb. 19: The weeds, pulled. The dirt, leveled. The weed block, laid. The mulch, spread. The stepping stones, moved to their new positions.