Pocket Park

This is a little Pocket Park on the walk between my house and studio that I have adopted as a restoration and problem-solving project. This is what the shrubs, I don’t know what they are, looked like in the snow. Needless to say there was a lot of damage, when the snow melted. So yesterday, armed with new pruning knowledge (Master Gardener training), Jerry and I removed 100 or so suckers and all the damaged branches, leaving surprisingly elegant results. I wish I had taken my camera with me because the transformation was a little astounding.
We also removed the mulch volcanoes, as mulch volcano kill, suffocating the plant, harboring diseases and as we found in evidence, the roots grow out of the soil into the mulch where they eventually dry out and starve to death. I don't know which happens first?
The inkberry, which didn’t look all that great to start with, got clobbered. I cut out the broken parts and will wait to see what happens to them next.