First thing first!
They started off by pulling out the weeds, began breaking up the soil and transferring as many of the existing rocks over into the border area.
The white stones against the fence looked a lot brighter already and they liked it.
Then they were going to use this area only as a container garden with pots.
They dug down about 3″ below their existing concrete patio slab and used hand tamper to pack the soil down. Finally they did their best to level out everything.