I started by spraying Round-up on the areas between the existing beds in August, then allowed it to do its work while we went on a birding trip to far west Texas.

Mary caught me standing on my workbench Dad built to hold down a piece of the edging with the saws-all Doug L gave me.

Cutting a piece of the edging with the metal-cutting blade in the saws-all

When we returned, I removed the piece of edging at the north end of the middle bed and installed new straight edging to connect it with the north bed. I left the north bed edging intact.

Here is the curved path outline and outer edging installed before putting any soil additives.

I removed irises from the south end of the north bed to allow space for some different plants there. I gave the irises to our neighbor Yung.

I'm not sure I got any photos of the process of adding sand, top soil and potting soil to the beds, or of putting gravel in the path; here is an "after" photo. I dug up the areas with a shovel, then used our Mantis tiller to mix in all the additives.

Here and following are some views of the new connecting bed with the soil and gravel path installed, with the daylilies and ornamental grass (sadly, probably dead) that John C gave me, along with some "surprise bulbs" in the south end of the north bed.

Bed and path borders installed with materials added

Long view of the middle and north beds after installing the connecting bed

Another view (from the west side) of the connection between the middle and north beds

Starting the connection between the south and middle "boat" beds. It took me two weeks to get back to work on this project. I decided to trim the quince and it was a bigger job than I anticipated (a common error I make): there were sprouts from the quince all the way out into the yard that I hadn't seen under its overgrown branches. I dug out all of them before continuing with the bed construction.

I filled "big blue" with the cuttings and dug-up sprouts from the flowering quince bush at the south end of the middle bed.

The south bed was the first one I installed years ago and the stakes holding the old edging were so stuck in the ground I had to use the small sledge to break them loose.

Supplies for the south "boat" bed, plus some "Charlie Brown" echinaceas for the front section