Here's one way to go about it.
1 - remove the Cedar chips and compost them elsewhere, replacing them with a fungi friendly wood chip layer as thick as possible. Free chips from a local tree surgeon.
2 - inoculate the new chips with a local wild mushroom slurry from a variety that appeases your visual taste.
3 - build a greenhouse and start learning how to grow plants from seeds and propagate them while the mushroom turns the wood chips into rich compost.
4 - design a multilayer "English" garden with a variety of native flowers of increasing height, nitrogen fixers, herbs and grassy patches leaving the entire 1/4 width for a tidy wild strawberry (Fragaria virginiana) ground cover to contrast with the 3/4 English garden. This could be a straight horizontal line from end to end or a more organic curve shaping the first 1/4 width of this beautiful garden and leaving no doubt it was carefully planned.
5 - transfer successful greenhouse seedlings into fertility holes in the wood chip area following the design placement of plants until the area is full of plants.
Looks neat 100% of the time.
2 years from start to finish.
Grows organically vs suddenly plunked there from imported plants.
Cost of a greenhouse, compost, trays and seeds.
