Pushing the woods back

Over this past weekend, I started pushing the woods back again. Flower beds need to be cleaned out and put to bed for the winter, and the Hosta is showing signs that it was lightly grazed by frost - I want to get it cleaned up before it turns to mush. It's so icky to clean up after it's frozen and thawed.
I started around the driveway, just trimming back what my sister and I cleared in the spring. I worked around to the front near the road, and gave that a good cleaning, finally getting to the telephone pole which eluded me in the great front clean up. Then I started up the side of the front lawn, reclaiming a flower bed that hadn't been touched in years. This basically involved clear cutting it back. I left a few phlox and asters to bob in the breeze for the bumble bees.
The bed was made up of hosta, phlox, iris, ferns, moss, and a rose that might be intentional. It also contained bittersweet, grape, poison ivy, blackberry, and multiflora rose. I actually left the poison ivy alone, and after carefully cleaning around it hosed it down in Roundup. As I worked my way up and close to the house, the bittersweet and rose were so thick it had choked out the poison ivy. But now I was in the territory of nature's own razor wire.
I also gave the yard a good trim, lowering the deck slightly so that I can over seed the grass. I'm sure it could use airation, but it could also use a good smoothing. Moles have gotten in and made a mess out of the south side of the lawn, but I spent much of the weekend walking all over it. I'm not don yet, so hopefully they will take the hint.
The pictures aren't all that interesting. There isn't much for scale or comparison.

Took two days to get through this bed. Another day to get up to the septic cover.

Looking toward the road - there was a tree being smothered under there.
The mound that's left there is a giant multiflora rose

Turning slightly to my right - there's the tree, and there's the cap to my septic.

And turning more right - there's the cap to the septic, and the path to the school-bus sized pile of yard waste that the brush is hiding.