Weed first, then mulch. Space is too tight to be able to use cardboard effectively without a lot of cutting and pasting and landscape/weed fabric is an ineffective barrier for weed control as well as complicating planting issues down the road.

The soil looks compacted given all the moss and creeping buttercup, so I’d dig it over, weeding as I go, to loosen the soil. Then mulch if you want to.

I would very neatly paint the white conduit on the wall to blend in against the stone facade.

thanks all for the help.

Don't dig (as in digging over with a spading fork) where there are shrub roots. Also:

Microsoft Word - B&B #22 - newspaper mulch.doc (wsu.edu)

I'd pull and dig out the weeds individually with small hand tools, gloved fingers and then throw decorative mulch on top of the existing fallen leaves.

If that's a dock (Rumex) in front of the maple in your last shot it's going to put up a fight, need to be addressed with a serious tool.

By digging I was referring to a light forking, not laying into it with a spade. I have a thing called a border fork expressly for this kind of job.

Not only is there dock, there’s also some sort of Rubus, aka bramble, growing up through the shrubs and the dreaded creeping buttercup. If these aren’t dealt with now the whole area will be infested by the summer. I’d also stop pruning the shrubs up onto a leg.

Since yardvaark seems to have left the building, which concerns me. Anyone know anything? In his honor and because it was my first thought for a rental unit with a lot of sad shrubs on a leg, carefully spray all the weeds between the shrubs with Roundup. Then cover the beds with a thick layer of mulch. You can hand weed or spot spray anything that comes back. No cardboard. Absolutely no landscape fabric. Let the earthworms fluff things up.

I sent yardvaark a message at the beginning of the year because I missed him but I haven't heard back. I hope he didn't get sick with the covid virus. Last post was in April 2021.

We don't have a sad button to use here.