Clearing up for Spring

I have been beavering away clearing the borders in readiness for Spring and it has been a pretty slow process - some of the borders took days to clear so I had an idea on how to speed up the procedure. Yesterday I tried it out and I am delighted with the results. This is the area before I started.

My old process was to cut back debris, then carefully weed the area thoroughly. The border being worked on looked wonderful for a couple of weeks but then lost its appeal as the weeds came back. I know I was probably the only person who noticed these weeds, but I couldn't help but feel discouraged. This is an example!

Yesterday I was just about to start the borders at the end of the garden, the Hot Border and the borders round the stream, and looking at the extent of this area I was disheartened. So I took a deep breath, and got cracking - cuttting back everything in site, but ignoring the weeds!!!! 

And guess what? It looks grand!!!! Yes, I know when I look closely I can identify the great crop of bittercress, and the fairly widespread thistle seedlings, but when I walk down that path today it looks neat and ready for Spring! Here is another angle!

I guess we gardeners can be divided into the micro-managers who obsess over every weed, and the Big Picture people who just want the garden to have an overall cared-for appearance! And some of us (like me) swing between both styles!