Unpleasant Surprise

Our front flower bed needs a lot of work. I'm not sure what effort was put into it in the past, but it had developed into a shabby mess. So much so, there was no clear picture of what was purposeful plant growth and what was weeds. 

Two overgrown bushes pressed against each other and took over about a fourth of the entire garden. One of them pushed against the fence and along with some low growing ground cover underneath, hid this beauty: 

A tree stump. We found out from a neighbor that it must have been the original tree planted when the complex was built. When digging in his front flower bed, he came upon an old stump not unlike this one. He managed to dig in there and get his up...somehow. 

I have enough determination and tenacity (I am my mother's daughter) to get after this tree stump and remove it. As it is, it sticks above the soil, when it's leveled, and takes a fair amount of garden space out of use.

Even though I have dug down deeply in search of those roots, the farthest I got was to the metal arched ring they put around the tree to mark the boundary of the bed around it. It appears from that, there is at least another foot or so of digging before hitting the roots. 

Matt and I discussed options and it looks like we'll be borrowing a chain saw to cut the trunk much lower and then we'll push a foot of soil back on top. As we have ventured into this gardening project, Matt has learned projects with Powers women tend to grow. :)