Actually regarding the border, I should be a bit more specific here. About 75% of the border is Silver Birch (as both my wife and I love the trunks of mature S. birch trees). But the other 25% of the trees planted in the border are a mix of Ash, Bird Cherry, Alder, Copper beech, Rowan and hazel, just to break up the monotony of the S. birch.
In total, including the S. birch, there are about 250 trees in the border. (as they grow, it is my intention to thin out as required).

Thanks,

Quincy

First you should try do decide what you will want to do in the areas of question.
Which large expanse of lawn are you referring to? The ones in front or back? If it is the one in back, the trees will separate it visually. I see the swingset and trampoline. Most kids would love the lawn area you have for sports. The area in the back has the trees to protect the cultivated areas and people from wayward sports objects. Overall, it's a good design for active children. I might move the swingset and tramp to a location where they can be seen conveniently from the house.

You may want to just enjoy the view of the areas or you may want to provide destinations to visit. Try to imagine what you would enjoy doing in the areas. If it just to spend less time on the mower or outside maintaining the landscape, you could get a bigger mower. The only thing that takes less upkeep time than a lawn is all natural and it's hard to go from lawn to natural quickly.

How about a meadow of native grasses and wild flowers? Looks like there's a field adjacent to you, so it might be appropriate.

Well I'm going to take the risk of saying that you may have made your decision a little more difficult by planting the trees just where they are - you're now trying to landscape behind them which is an unusual assignment. I think most people would have planted such a border along the property line and landscaped in front of it. I actually think the end effect will be spectacular, but it's a tough design assignment.

The reality is that you have a large property and those surfaces will have to be covered with something. Given that all the alternatives to lawn will be either more work or uglier (concrete - tennis court?), what you do with those areas depends so much on who you are as a land user and maintainer that it is really hard for anyone to tell you what they would do. With ponds etc you may actually not spend less time mowing, as mowing around stuff will be more labour-intensive.

I think what you need is a technique for getting yourself past "stumped." Someone else may have a better one, but I'm wondering whether it would be a good idea to (a) keep thinking trees, as there is lots of scope for more to be planted here, even to the point of whole groves or woodland, and (b) imagine for a moment how you would landscape if you had not done the tree border. You may still be able to do those things, but perhaps they aren't occurring to you because the trees are in.

KarinL

You have a grand entrance leading to....a lawn. What would delight your eye as you emerge from the stand of birches? I can imagine many different things: a naturalistic pond, a larger-than-life Alexander Calder sculpture set on the grass, a formal pool with surrounding pergola, a picnic area, a maze of hedges and sheared topiaries, layers of billowing flowering shrubs, the wild meadow mentioned by treelover, a series of tree-shaded courtyards, so many possibilities leap to mind. Do you see yourself in any of these scenarios?

Several more comprehensive photos in a less-bleak season and a glimpse of the house style might stir the imagination further.

I'm a little confused on the scale of the diagram. How far apart are the trees planted from each other?

Frankie, at the moment i have the border densly planted. The trees are roughly about 3ft apart but I expect to thin this out once they mature in a few years. Sorry the diagram is a bit misleading. The diagram is a scanned pencil drawn sketch. After I scanned it, I added lines and detail using microsoft paint and some clip art images of trees. the trees are not to scale.

Karin, We knew for sure that we wanted the tall trees. When we were in italy a few years ago we saw this same effect in a garden and it was beautiful. We are trying to recreate the canopy and courtyard feeling of that italian setting using the silver birch as the natural barrier. We have a lot of natural stone on the front of the car garage and the back of the house so the retaining walls will be of smooth plaster finish to give a crisp look to them. They'll be painted to match the house.

I want to feel drawn through the canopy "entrance" and up to the upper lawn area. I want something of interest primarily up there (whole right side of the diagram). I would like to keep some lawn but perhaps set flowing borders around the edges or tree groves too, I like that idea. Tree shaded courtyards sounds good too. My kids normally play in the north west corner of the property so basically the whole east side of the yard is to do with as I please. My wife is talking about how she'd like a small vegtable garden, so that is on the cards for sure. I'm not into a lot of hedging or topiaries. Big borders breaking up the area would be good. Combination of trees and shrubs.... A small pond to attract butterflies... all sound good.
You're right though... Now I have the trees in, I find myself thinking "Oh, sh*t.... what next!" I cant see beyond it.

I'll scan a few of the other sketches I drew and give you guys a look?
I have some more photos of the house & yard I'll post as soon as I get a chance.
As we're teasing this out I'm getting some more ideas so thanks for your suggestions so far! I appreciate it.
I live in Ireland by the way.

My wife and I have done some more talking about this border. I think you might be right, planting the trees so close to the house might have hampered our way forward. On top of that, I am a little concerned that the variety of birch I chose for the border could grow to 40+ feet which could be an issue down the road.

We could still go for large shrubs or small trees (max height 10-15ft) in the border and still achieve the desired shelter belt we are looking for. We could move the silver birch to the fence line. We'd have to wait until autumn to do this. Most of the birch are still fairly small 6-7ft so bare root transplant might be on. Do you guys think they'd survive?

I think we will have more options open to us if we do move the birch trees, what do you guys think?

Some photos of the house and border.

Looking to the East..
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Closer shot of the border looking East. (This photo was taken several weeks ago, before the capping was put on the wall and the walls and piers were plastered. Drainage and back fill still needs to be put in behind the retaining wall in the foreground of the pic)
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Looking to the West.
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Photo of the kids playhouse and dog run.
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Heres a photo of the area I have to play with. I've never been satisfied with the lawn up here. The surface is quite uneven having had horses unintentionally pass through there several times over the last couple of years. It never really responds well to fertiliing or other ammendments. It nearly always has patchy colour no matter what I try. It does have several patches of vigorous clover which my daughter loves to sit in and pick the flower... (She quits talking to me when I apply weed killer every year, but the clover comes back again and again.... to her delight!)
I would be happy to burn off what is there, add good quality top soil and start again. I can plant a nice clover patch for my daughter somewhere else...!
I could split it up with several borders/islands or something else. My wifes new vegtable garden will most likely be in the far off corner of the photo.
It is roughly 160ft X 75ft.
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It looks to me like you have the potential to make a lot of garden rooms out of your yard, actually (over the course of several years, potentially, if so desired). I was just re-reading P. Allen Smith's book Garden Home, which talks about how precisely that. He uses a lot of formal geometries, but you could certainly use the same ideas in a more free-form manner. One thing he points out is that with different garden rooms, you can have different themes/color schemes in each room (especially if you use evergreen hedges to divide them).

So, you could divide that rear area into a series of connecting spaces - but you would have to decide on themes. You already have vegetable garden as one space on your list.

Btw, I guessed you might be on that side of the pond by your spelling of kerb. ;)

That last picture, the one giving the view to the horizon is very helpful because it explains the pattern in your sketch, and this is how I suggest you continue. You must fix the details but a garden radiating out to the pattern in the countryside that also invites it in is the way to go. Maybe you know something about future developments but the number of trees in that bed may obscure the view.

Does "I live in Ireland by the way" mean that you are not native?

No incognito, I'm born & bred native irish. I know you guys talk in "zones" over there in the US, we dont have such defined areas here so I wanted to make it known where I am living.

Quote - "Maybe you know something about future developments but the number of trees in that bed may obscure the view."

There are some old grain silos not far up up the road to the South East that I had planned to obscure with the birch border, but I could also do this with the birch trees transplanted to the fence line.
I went through all of my garden books last night and they all gave different estimates for the height of Silver Birch (Betula Pendula). Ranging from 30ft (taken from the original book that helped us to decided on the silver birch) ranging from 30ft (with a canopy diameter of 10ft) right up to 90ft (with a canopy diameter of 35ft), all within a growth span of 20 years!! That is just a crazy difference between the different authors. Where do they do their research...?
A potential border of 90ft birch trees kind of scares me.

Would these juvenile trees that I have be OK to move 'bare root' again come autumn time? Or would I need to lift the root ball? They were 4-5ft bareroot trees when I got them and they are in the ground on my property roughly about 2 years now.

Hello, Quincy-

I'm just in awe of anyone who would be open to moving 250 trees! It does, I think, open up possibilities.

I can't really help much. When the scale gets larger like this, I have more trouble getting a clear picture in my head. Yep, I'm a gardener who happens to be blind and who loves to think about the design of landscapes. Vision earlier in life sort of gives me an idea of what people are trying to do, and I like the "head picture" of this path through the mostly s birches going "up" to the back of your property.

Do I have that mostly right? And then there is this canopy? That creates a kind of entrance to the undeveloped part?

I also don't know what would happen to your s birches if you transplant this autumn. If you're okay with possibly losing a few, my guess is that it would be fine. Check on the Tree Forum--they'd know. They might also settle your size question on this or any other tree choice.

This may be a really dumb idea, but since you and your wife have a thing for s birches, why not make them the ultimate destination rather than the corridor or passage through the landscape. I guess I'm sort of imagining a subtle process of things getting a bit wilder as you move along. Perhaps go with somewhat shorter things to pass through and up into this area. Perhaps create a pond area, but the destination would be a grove of your mixed trees with a secluded glade at its heart. The perfect secret garden?

As for the vegie garden, wouldn't it make more sense closer to the house?

Wellspring

This design is the extreme opposite of how most of us utilize our homes over here. We tend to strive to tie our outdoor uses to our indoor uses. We use our surroundings to extend our lifestyles from the indoor to the outside and vice versa.

The first thing that strikes me is that the program seems to be to isolate the house from the outdoors and to isolate the outdoor activities as well. Pavement surrounding the house with little opportunity for any landscape until that moat is crossed. Then there is a wall that has to be breached in order to access any outdoor activity that does not involve pavement. That is followed by a small forest that further pushes back and separates any outdoor activities from the house.

The child's area is far away, hidden, and isolated as if it were a refuse container or something else offensive. It makes no sense to me.

I'd chaulk it up to cultural differences, but then there is the kiddy pool. A revelation - it is close by where it is easily seen and accessed from the living areas. The only problem is that the area is already dedicated to a driveway as is the entire perimeter of the house.

I just find this to be a very counter-intuitive way to live. I'm not saying it is wrong. I'm just saying that I, for one, can't understand that set of priorities. You have to know the function in order to direct the form. These people either have a very different set of functions or are extremely incapable of designing. I have no idea which.

Quote - "I'm just in awe of anyone who would be open to moving 250 trees! It does, I think, open up possibilities."

Hi Wellspring, thanks for your comments. I would prefer to dig them up now when they're relatively small rather than having to cut them down with a chainsaw in a few years time. Even if I need to rent a mini excavator to lift the root ball out and do it that way, I think it would be worth it. The more I think about my current choice in planting for the border and with the advice offered here on GW, the more I understand that I have closed myself in. A variety of colourful shrubs on the border would be much more appealing and also easier to control with perhaps a few birch trees dotted through the border for height.
I've been looking through the internet and through lots of books lately trying to get some planting ideas for the border. Approaching the border as a blank sheet once again....

Thanks to everyone for your replies.

Hmmm, OK. I understand your points Laag. I'll go into this a little further then. We, as a family, spend most of our time either in the sun room at the rear of the house or on the wooden deck that is just off the sun room. Indicated on the plan by a rectangle with diagonal lines on it. That is the 'HUB' of the garden for us. The deck gets sun from 10am to about 4pm through the day. North of the deck between the cherry blossom and swing set, gets full sun all day long.
To the North of the deck in the area of the cherry blossom is our family lawn area. We play there, enjoy the sun there (when it does peek out throught the clouds) and generally congregate there. So really from the north side of the house up to the north fence (including the kids play area) is where we spend most of our time when we are outside. The Swing set is clearly visible from the house and our kids spend a lot of time in there. When we have friends over, of course all the kids flock to the play house. Grown ups always nearby on the deck. So with that respects, the location for the playhouse was chosen in a prominent area, not hidden as you interpreted.
The original plan for the house was that we would park the cars to the rear of the house, in front of the car garage on the gravel area, but it was not ergonomic and simply didn't work out. That area in front of the garage doors is always kept clear, almost as an open courtyard. Yes, the easy up paddle pool is always put up there, as is the kids blow-up bouncy castle/slide when the weather is fine. The 3ft wide concrete pavement that surrounds the house was on the insistence of my wife. Kids needing a cycle path to round the house. Note - the driveway into the property and at the back 'courtyard' area, is 3/4inch pea gravel. Great for drainage, crap for cycling on.

Before I built the retaining wall and gravel area, the whole lot was simply a lawn. here are some old photo's...

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My wife and I hated it that way. It felt like we were living in the middle of a soccer pitch. Of course, for practical reasons we had to put a hard surface around to the garage doors which was part of the original design plan anyway. The retaining wall was an idea that we both liked having seen it while on vacation, so that had to be incorporated. And we wanted the closed in 'courtyard' feeling from tall trees with a passageway to the upper lawn almost as a passage to a "secret garden", drawing you from the deck, across the yard and in through the entrance, through the "small forest" and up to the.....
And this is where the story ends so far... The tall birch trees are history, I'll change them for 10-15ft variety with lots of shrubs. That should give visual interest and varied structure to the border.
BUT my concept works. I had a bbq a couple of weeks ago and just about everyone admired the entrance to the upper lawn and equally everyone suggested I needed more than just a lawn up there to REWARD whoever follows the path. EXACTLY what I wanted to hear!! So the story will continue, I just need some help.
Quote - "These people either have a very different set of functions or are extremely incapable of designing. I have no idea which."
You could be right Laag. Maybe I am incapable of designing.... i wouldnt be here looking for advice if I was able to whip up the right design off the bat!

" The child's area is far away, hidden, and isolated as if it were a refuse container or something else offensive. It makes no sense to me."

Quincy has already given information that indicates that children really aren't that much out of view. As he was writing, I was plugging away on a post. My comments sort of doesn't make sense anymore, but, hey, I might as well add my 2 bits.

Wish I could remember the name of the book, but it dates back to when my child was about 4 years old. The book was about children, play, and the connections to nature. One of the main points came from studies showing how children play in nature, loving to find secret places, exploring, climbing, and learning skills about trusting themselves and just being in nature. Quincy's daughter sitting in the clover says it all to me. I wouldn't think "refuse container". I'd think respecting children enough to let them be out of sight at times (with regular checking, of course). Perhaps we supervise our kids so much that they never gain their own confidence and sense of belonging to an outside world?

When I was six or seven, my brother and I ranged with other kids across all the backyards and alleys of our neighborhood. We were given boundaries that weren't to be crossed, primarily certain busy streets, and we soon learned which homes had crotchety owners who didn't appreciate kids passing over their property.

We often played various versions of hide-and-seek. If I remember correctly, that was one of the conjectures from the studies--we have a deeply embedded pre-disposition for that "game", which may once have played a role in survival. Sometimes with others, sometimes alone, I climbed trees, found quiet places just to sit and ponder ants and dandelions, built or found forts, and discovered the places where bees, bunnies, birds, wasps, spiders, toads and snakes liked to hang out.

The worst thing that happened to me, apart from the occasional bee sting, was getting into a field of horses sort of tucked into this relatively new development. Some of the kids I was with were riling them up. I was totally horse crazy at the time and just wanted to pet one of the ponies. When I tried, it reared, it knocked me down, I fell, then I rolled. I still remember the hoof that hit the ground right where I'd been.

I was bruised and scared. My brother got me home, and I still remember being rocked and comforted by my mother in her rocking chair. Surprisingly, Mom didn't curtail our roaming and I continued to adore horses.

I am not suggesting that parents be unwise. At the same time, a play area that's a bit more distant than we're used to doesn't have to mean disrespect of children and childhood.

Wellspring

"Here's a photo of the area I have to play with." Maybe because I live where things go parched dry and brown in summer (and sometimes up in flames), it seems to me *that view* (wow!) of the low, vivid green hills off in the distance should be preserved and framed.

In the very simplest verbal sketch, you'd walk through your canopy gate, through the shrubs, arriving at your naturalistic pond -- supply it with some boulders if you can -- then direct the path northward toward your view with a sweep of your birch trees, perhaps fronted by lower shrubs and still lower flowering borders.

So on your sketch at the top of this thread, the pond and its surrounding paths and plantings fill the southeast corner, and the trees, shrubs, and flowers begin there, but thinly, then more densely along the back fence, and most dense at the northeast corner, but leaving the view of the hills open.

Do you see the general funnel shape of of the bright green lawn on this garden map? Imagine your pond area below the skinny end, approximately where it's labeled "Theatre" and your view of the hills beyond the wide end of the lawn. The tree/shrub/flower background begins thinly, just as illustrated on the map, then grows deeper, filling the area on the map marked "Parterre", this being your northeast corner. (I know I've seen a photo of a garden with beds layering into a background of trees, but can't think where; this is the best I can come up with at the moment.) Your house and garage lie approximately where the succulent gardens are, your wall, gate, and shrubs roughly in the bromeliad garden. : ) This is a very poor use of this illustration, sorry!

This seems like a huge project to me, really huge -- moving trees, excavating for a pond, moving in boulders. Once you get a general mental picture of what you want, aren't there competent landscape designers and installers in your area who can help execute this for you? I just wonder if the tree-moving might have been avoided by consulting with a professional first? Maybe avoid similar upheaval in future by consulting a pro in the design stage?

THANKS Catkin. That is a great plan. I do appreciate it. I think you are right about consulting a pro. I know I am over my head here. I sent out a couple of emails today looking for consultation quotes so your advice has been taken and acted upon.
I dont mind the sweat equity. I love getting into the hard work part of a project like this. Its the "grand scheme" I am finding hard to visualise. If I can find a designer that can give me a sheet of paper that says, plant this here, dig that there.... I'll get it done.
Thanks to everyone for your input, much appreciated!!!