| 1) post on freecycle.com, or craigslist.com and/or put up a sign or three promoting 'free dig-ur-own' plants. 2) get a heavy duty rake (not a fan shaped leaf rake, but a flat-headed one) and use a hoe-ing motion(downward chop into soil, take a step back, pulling the rake and plants back with you) to drag mats of plants out. a heavy layer of mulch will discourage anything that got missed, and will allow you to do selective weeding (I'm a fan of the flame weeder from Leevalley.com) the important thing to remember is that both of these spread by underground runners, so there is no such thing as a total kill the first time around. the OTHER important thing to remember is that you need to know what will go in there well before you start pulling the plants out. once you break up that mat, you're opening yourself to weeds, erosion, and a general mess that can take years to repair. (by the way- if you're putting shrubs in, there's no reason to remove the ground cover at all- ferns, bulbs, rhodidendrons, my oak-leaf hydrangeas- all of them live happily with both vinca and pachys.) | 
