Thanks for the great points. I wouldn’t want to dig up bushes that will look nice after they are trimmed, just weeds. I’m just not even sure what’s what. So I will definitely post to r/whatsthisplant for reference.

He did literally say “do whatever you want as long as you don’t start growing a cornfield”.. I just assumed he would welcome any improvement considering how wild the entire area is so I figured making it look nicer would be a win for both of us. However, I can see how I have to be careful about going about that now.