Extreme Gardening

I have been watching a few people on my FB feed who are creating lovely garden beds and talking about doing major overhauls on their yards, and I need to do that, myself.  Extreme Makeover:  Garden Edition.  

This is what it looked like in 2007:

Market-ready, cute, and just what we wanted--a low-maintenance yard.

...and this is what it looks like now.  

That cute little pine tree is a monster.  The little bushes have grown into each other, or shriveled to nearly nothing from lack of light or excess acid in the soil.  

The pathway from the side street to the door is half-buried by overgrown trees and covered in pine needles.  How do you sweep pine needles from a gravel walkway?

This is a view from the other side of the Japanese maple.  See on the left, where the leaves touch the ground?  Yeah.  That's a stepping stone in the MIDDLE of the walkway.

The bushes in the front yard have grown into each other, so instead of being three distinct bushes, it looks like one continuous shrub whose foliage changes color and texture.

The side yard is equally overgrown.

The hydrangeas and camellias have grown together into an impenetrable fortress of foliage that turning the garden hose on is an almost impossible task.  The pea gravel that was used as ground cover everywhere is covered by a layer of decaying leaves and flowers.

At the back side fence has a vacancy where a bush used to be.  It died...Now there are two bushes that have become one.  

And one tree has become two!  Clearly the bi-colored maple was grafted onto a single-color maple, which has now decided to be both.  

The Eastern Pine in the front is choking the life out of the hydrangeas.  It's hard to see, but half the plant is bare and the growth on this guy is severely stunted.

This bush on the side yard looks deformed or severely depressed.  I think it's *supposed* to look like this.  Its branches are twisted and curly and all the leaves are curled and wilted.
I received a note from a friend that this plant is called a Hazel Nut Contorta, or a Corkscrew Hazel.  Knowing that, and finding a web page on maintenance, will help it look a lot healthier.  However, that said, I think I need to move it to a better location.

The front garden patch is overgrown with these vine-like things.  They had been growing in a pot, but sprung from its container and spread everywhere.  

They're even trying to grow onto the porch.  They must be stopped!

Jeanie said she's coming over on Monday night to help with the garden control.  I might be asking Benjamin for his assistance tomorrow afternoon.  He owes me a few favors after forgetting his lunch TWICE this week.