Garden projects like re-doing the pond are never quick or easy. They also create related projects that need doing at the same time. That's the case with this secondary project that we finished last week. This shows the area as it looked in the early years as you came around the house to the back garden. The old is deck on the left and the pond on the right.

In 2008 we decided to turn this discreet area into a raked gravel garden to relate it to the one out front. Mark removed the grass, made a sinuous rock wall and put down weed barrier.

It got topped off with fine gravel, raked and looked perfect.

Thirteen years later, it is less than perfect with construction debris — limestone pieces and an old wood bench — taking up space. Both shrubs had seriously deteriorated from bad winters and bad bunnies. Mark and I decided that this raked gravel garden made no sense if we were turning the big pond into one as well. This smaller one would detract from the pond re-do, so it had to go. To revert this area back to a planting zone, meant that everything that had gone into its creation now had to come out.

First Mark removed the best gravel off the top and added it to the front gravel garden. The rest went into the pond (below) as filler.

Then he pulled up all those pieces of weed barrier to reach the soil level.

But before we could add more dirt, we had to pull out the stone wall.

Despite being smallish stones, they were heavy and not easy to just grab and pull out. I know since I helped on this part of the project.

As stones were being pulled out on one side of this slope below the Tea House, they were being used to create a new wall on the other side. Previously logs delineated the path.

First load of soil goes down just before the mostly dead shrubs were removed. The one on the left is a Burning Bush so I was fine with seeing it go.

Glad I left the flags in place as I never would have been able to figure out where my spring ephemerals were planted once the rock wall was gone.

A second load of dirt and the area is ready for me to plant. The rock piles on the back right are for a different project.

I used two bags of our chopped leaf much to keep the dirt from blowing away.

I more or less have a planting plan; I just need to get up and out early enough to have energy to do the work.