Novice - help me with soil prep please?

[Heroicallylost]

Hello, don't know much about gardening at all so hoping for some pointers please! Just had a huge leylandii hedge taken out and now left with a border about 30ft long, 1-2ft deep.

How should I prep the soil to create a good base for a pretty flower border? Stumps were ground but it's full of tree bits and twigs. Will I need to dig/riddle it all, or replace with good soil? Should I dig in anything to enrich it? Really don't know what I'm doing. Want to keep the work to a minimum as I'm a single working mum and don't have a lot of time/energy for heavy gardening. Thanks in advance

When I did the same last year I decided not to plant anything until the spring. Thus giving me time to prepare the soil and expose it to winter frost, hopefully killing any lurking baddies.
Firstly I dug the ground over to remove weed roots, stones and general bits. I then left it a bit for the birds to peck about, removing leatherjackets and other grubs. Also to let me recover! Over the winter I dug it over about 3 times, once again removing anything that had surfaced and to allow the frost to break up the compacted soil.
In the Spring I took out any obvious sprouting weeds and then began improving the soil with commercial soil improver from the garden centre. I basically put any compost that was cheap on it and a couple of bags of composted manure.
The area was devoid of worms, so I moved a few from another part of the garden
Then I planted it up after the frost had gone. It's a jungle of cottage garden plants now!

I would dig it over and remove bits, then get a load of well rotted manure ( it can be delivered, it is like dark soil and odourless), and dig in about a wheel Barrow load every square Metre or so. Then plant in the spring.

I had exactly the same done last summer. I also did exactly the same as JT05, but as Leylandii chipping are somewhat acidic, I dug in a lot of mushroom compost, which is on the alkeline side. Then this spring, after one last dig and mix, I added the contents of my home compost bin. Likewise, it's now a beautiful cottage garden riot. Roses, foxgloves, verbena, scabious and the rest are all growing magnificently, and the mini beast population is high.