Repurposing long established flower/ shrub bed

[Dan]

Hello all,
We’ve recently moved to a new house with great sized garden in East Sussex. It’s been maintained as a formal flower and shrub garden for maybe the last forty years. We’ve been planning from the outset from a permaculture and no dig perspective. There are many large beds close to the house that we want to repurpose for herbs and vegetables. Most of them are currently jam packed with large shrubs and an all season array of perennial flowers. We have had great success with new no dig beds from scratch, but never a repurposed bed. Clearing foliage one bed and lifting a couple of forkfulls of soil has shown a good 6 inches of bulbs and thick roots.
Can anyone suggest how we should approach this effectively?
Hope this makes sense and isn’t too waffly!
Cheers

[charles]

Hi Dan, many of those bulbs will be dormant until different times of year, no quick answer with mulching.
I would try a few things – cardboard, polythene – and be prepared to trowel out any unwanted regrowth.

[Author]

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