I guess I would be looking to create focal points in the yard and directing the views. A shrub off the right corner of the patio and left side of the trellis in conjunction with the shrub against the fence might help to frame a long axis view of the right corner from the patio. Everything seems to be built up along the fence creating a extended half moon lawn. I would like to see the grass creating negative space to help re-inforce the focal points.

It is great that you are planning things out and you have given a lot of thought about how your family lives. I love the fact that you even thought about the dog! All the plants you have listed should do well here in Texas. And I absolutely love the trellis with the climbing roses! I would wonder if you plan to put a mowing strip so you don't have to trim around all the trees. And you mentioned vegetables, but I don't see a place for them. Otherwise, I think you should be very proud of yourself for thinking, planning, and designing a lanscape that will be beautiful and functional for your family's lifestyle.

You're off to a good start. The assessment of what you need, coupled with your plan, will probably get you a good result the first time instead of the the third reconstruction.

I have only a few comments. Looking at your plan my mind was having difficulty reconciling the plan with the stated yard dimensions of 60 ft by 40 to the backdoor, 29 to the bedroom. It's a minor thing that would probably only bother me. But after superimposing a grid on the plan it can be seen there is a small error of scale (the red dash lines match the dimensions for the yard and house walls). Keep this in mind as you develop plant spacing.

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Also, you make no mention of the slope of the property. One important consideration of every landscape is water movement and drainage. If your yard is flat, even small changes in grade or hardscape can cause a problem. I suggest you use one copy of your plan to map all water movement; roof water, any water entering from another property, where the excess water leaves your property, and flow direction throughout the yard.

One of the items you mention is shade for the patio. No wonder, Dallas is hot. The placement of just the right tree in the right spot is needed to accomplish the goal. As the seasons change, so does the sun's location. You should consider what weeks of the year shade is most important along with what time of day the patio will be in use. Plant a tree that shades the patio at 6 pm in March and in June you may find that the patio is in shade at 4 pm while at 6 pm it's back in sun.

Crown shape and height are important factors to consider, a greater height allowing for a greater distance, patio to tree. You might want to plant a fast growing tree close to the patio for shade over the next 5 years while a more substantial tree grows to a greater height further back in the landscape. All of this can be planed but first the true orientation of the yard must be known. This can be found by noting the time of day along with the date of observation that the sun aligns with the side fence. (example 5:38 on May 15).

Hi all, thanks for your comments.

Isabella, one of my dogs LIVES to play catch with her ball. She is 7 years old so for now I wanted a fairly open space so we could continue to play. Once she has passed on, we'll add garden rooms to more sub-divide the space.

Holly, all of the plants will be in dedicated beds with mowing strips along the edge. Once I have the shrubs and trees worked out I'll be moving on to the perennials and grasses. Once the full plan is done I'll figure out where the bed borders should be.

Pls8, thanks for catching my scale error! I did the drawing in PowerPoint so the scale was a swag. When I get the plan more solid I'm planning to draw it out on graph paper so I know exactly where to plant everything. The yard has a slight slope away from the house toward the back fence so I will definitely be careful where I put the berms. Even with three solid weeks of rain I have no standing water in the backyard. We also got 4" in about 12 hours a couple weeks ago and had no standing water so there is good drainage into the greenbelt behind us.

As for the tree, we're not planting until October, so I will watch the sun movement. I think where I have it on the plan is too far to the south. I'll see where the sun is in July - September and may have to make some major adjustments to the plan to get the tree into the right spot.

Right now I'm leaning to a fairly open canopy with dappled shade and no more than 40 - 50 ft tall at maturity. My last yard had two huge red oaks and while they were pretty I couldn't grow the plants I wanted.

Thanks all for your help....lots of food for thought!

lisa99 said "My last yard had two huge red oaks and while they were pretty I couldn't grow the plants I wanted."

When it comes to soil resources, large trees are the thugs of the landscape. They take what they need and everything else suffers. But the situation can be controlled. Just as the canopy can be shaped by pruning so too can the distribution of roots be influenced.

Tree roots develop faster in those areas with adequate water and nutrients. If the only area in the landscape with a good soil condition is the plant beds, you set up fight with the trees and the trees win.

In your case, the lawn area should be amended to a depth of 8 inches to produce a soil with high permeability. Do not use organics, the improvement is not permanent. Use sand or a sand vermiculite mix. The top 1 inch should be almost pure sand.

After planting the tree, make sure that the direction you want for the roots has the water and fertilizer needed. A few feet from the tree, prune any roots going in the wrong direction. In this way tree roots can be encouraged to go as far as a 100 ft to the location of your choosing. As long as the tree gets what it needs it won't compete with the plants in your beds. The trick is to start when the tree is young.

If you like both drawing on a grid and using your computer, you can find a blank grid like I used above in the link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: forum thread with blank grid

Thank you for the grid and the link to the Design plan thread. It will be helpful when I'm ready to move to paper. And I agree with you on the home-owner based landscape design software packages. They're are USELESS!

For soil amendments, we have black loam/clay in my area. It is recommended that we not add sand since the combination of the two will turn to a concrete like substance over time. I'm considering bringing in a bobcat and scraping the entire yard down 6 - 8 inches and putting back good topsoil. The scraping is necessary since the current soil is almost at the brick line of my house now. So I can't go any higher.

Adding sand to clay in the proper quantities does not lead to a concrete like substance. A sand / clay mix is one of the best growing mediums to be found. The important thing is to use enough sand, sand /vermiculite, or in your area expanded shale to obtain a permeable soil quality. Until permeability is reached there will be little improvement.

And removing 3 inches of soil and replacing with 3 inches of sand will be much cheaper than the cost of 6 inches of a good top soil.

Adding sand to clay in the improper quantities is the recipe for creating adobe. Assuming you add the proper quantities in the top 3 inches, what happens over time in the interface between your sand-amended layer and the regular clay? It sounds as if you could end up with highly permeable, sandy soil in the top 3 inches, lined with a layer of adobe 3 inches down.

After reading pls8's response I started doing some research. He's right, it can be done if done correctly but in my neck of the woods, done correctly is a huge amt of sand.

Since I'm focusing on native who thrive in the clay, I will be amending with compost and expanded shale in equal parts. I also just sent a soil sample to Texas A&M to see what else might be needed.

Thanks pls8 for getting me to thinking about the soil portion of this equation.