Tuchina- I'm not a professional designer, just a professional dreamer. With your situation--student, limited funds, existing trees, soil, and other constraints--a great deal depends on who you are and what brings you joy. For me, I love research, asking questions, gaining know-how, envisioning possibilities (even financially impossible possibilities). I love being outside in the garden as much as possible, so spring and fall clean up, bed prep, plant transplanting, as well as creating places I like to eat, sit, meditate, and read are important. Working to create these spaces is something that I find entertaining. And I don't mind very slow progress. I purposely set my annual garden goal very low: Is it better this year than last year? And, though it's been slow, I am getting there. I agree that creating a sort of master plan may help you move forward. But it's okay to plan to take the trees down in your master plan, even if you can't do this for a couple of years. That question, of course, may also depend on how long you will live in this house and whether completing your schooling will mean you will be trying to sell. If you plan to work in the same city / town where you are now in school and this will be your home for the next 10 years, then consider a master plan strongly geared toward what you would really love this place to be. On the front end, don't limit your dreaming perspective. It will, after all, potentially be your back yard for a good chunk of your existence. If your time frame is considerably les, then moderate the master plan toward the objective of good stewardship of the yard and home and doing what you decide will give you best value when you need to sell. Once that's out of the way I second Bahia's advice about books, gardens in the neighborhood, gardens and parks in your city, botanical gardens. Go on a picture safari this spring. Take garden tours in your town or region. Lots of notes. Keep a garden journal, especially describing vignettes (little created scenes and settings in a landscape) that, perhaps for some as yet unknown reason, seem to stop your heart. Do the same with garden pictures in magazines and seed catalogs. If you can cut out the pictures, then put them in the garden journal. Later on, you will have to deal with the fact that some of these photos are touched up like runway models, but, nevertheless, if the picture seems to speak to your heart, it's worth beginning to ask yourself "Why?" Now, much of what you capture this way will have nothing to do with your current backyard. I told you I was a professional dreamer! But it is still very much worth learning what it is that you love in the garden, don't you think? Apparently, you found something wonderful about having a fig tree, right? My mom planted one a few years ago and it's a lovely thing ... Back to planning process. You also need to ask yourself a lot of questions about what you want to be able to do in your backyard. You've mentioned that there is no patio -- Would you like one? Do you want a place to drink a cup of coffee in the morning? A table and chairs for friends to sit outside and talk deep thoughts past midnight? A place to groom the pups? You've mentioned a back fence that the neighbor put up but does not maintain. You've put up a second fence ... I think to keep the pups in the yard. Not sure. So this brings up some things you need or want: Enclosure adequate to keep dogs in the yard, and A way to mitigate the ugliness of the neighbor's fence. Now, remember, at this stage you're still just playing. So you can write anything in the whole wide world down as a "I'd love to have ...". Nobody needs to see your list. do you want a fountain or water feature? Do you really wish you had adequate sun for a vegie or herb garden? Do you want to teach your pups dog agility? (Don't laugh! That's what's in my brother's back yard. All these wonderful fun things for his dogs.) Or, maybe you'd just like a nice patio area, maybe some containers of flowers spilling over, and a real lawn dotted with much smaller (younger) ornamental trees and shrubs? Information about what you want and what you need comes first. And I'd even say it comes before you limit the discussion with budget. Trust me, mine is miniscule, but I am working to save up for a major change. I know what I want because I worked on my "master plan". I'm hoping something in this is helpful. If it were me, I'd try to sketch out your main design, I would (and did) get a consultation with a designer (oh, meant to ask, are there any landscape design schools around? You can sometimes get help through a student looking for experience), and then I'd focus on one small area. For me, I'd be planning to nix the trees, so I'd check out the cost. Then that might be all that I could do this year. Or I'd get myself a patio so I could sit sipping a glass of wine, contemplating the possibilities ...

I grow lots of fruit trees here. Fruit trees go good with roses as long as the trees dont get too big and shade the roses out too much. I just planted Mermaid rose yesterday several feet from a shrubby LSU purple fig. The LSU Purple figs dont get too dense of a canopy. I also grow: Starfruit, figs, dwarf black mulberry, Longan, lots of citrus (several lemon varieties, 2 Buddah's Hand, 4 Red Fingerlimes, Blood Orange, Ray Ruby grapefruit, Thai Lime, Persian lime), Hass avocado, Then I have a Miracle fruit and 15 little Jackfruit seedlings that are a few feet high lol. Also have dragonfruit and some diff types of berries, grapes. Probably more that Im forgetting about right now lol.

Yes, photos. Pavers patterns are usually run uniformly along an axis throughout their field and are cut at the edges to accommodate curves. It's commonplace. Sometimes, the pavers are run curved. One would need to see a proposed plan in order to imagine what you might could do. Pavers are "flexible" and can be all kinds of creative. Yeah .... a flagstone path does not sound "modern."

those are lovely ideas and photos and ideas! i am saving every single one of them. this is not a home in the center of athens. it is located in a small beach town in peloponesos, where I am from. yes the second picture is the strip of backyard. the plan is to do the exterior of the home and add a privacy fence to keep graffiti artists out and my kids out of the road. then the rest is a work in progress. i dont know anything about sticks of fire so i will look them up. I looooveee the idea of bougainvillea (love the explosion of colors they provide) and love the olive tree! i think it already has 2 or 3 small fruit trees planted but i dont know what kind and they are small. what about agave? the neighbor has this HUGE cactus. i mean bigger than her house. I think i will wait on the cactus though bc im worried about my kids getting stuck. they are boys...always getting into trouble