Do you want to get rid of the Japanese maple, citrus, and veggie beds, too? Or is that the future plan?

Too bad you cut the trees down before asking for advice. Although after thinking about it for a few, there is something you could try that would solve all your remaining problems at once. Check out the device on the back of the tractor in this picture.

{{gwi:80981}}

The tool is called a box blade or landscaper's blade. That guy has his ripper tines lifted up so you can see them clearly. He can drop them down into the soil to loosen hardpan, lift rocks, or dig roots. It would take about a full morning to clear your lot and leave it as pristine as you see in that picture. If you did not have the roots it would take about 20 minutes.

With a 65'X65" yard it sounds like the OP is in an older city neighborhood, there may not be access for that large of equipment.

OP: Go down to Harbor Frieght, Wallmart, etc. If you watch you can get fairly large plastic tarps cheap. a couple dollars (11' X 11' for $8. on sale even less.) Use the wood you cut down to hold it in place. Later when you start painting you can use it for drop cloths.

OR you can get a roll of the sheet plastic that is used for drop cloths and again cheap that you could re use.

To remove the stumps and work the clay you need a Mattock. Great for removing roots and planting in clay.

http://www.harborfreight.com/catalogsearch/result?q=Mattock

I could not plant any thing without it. I use it to make holes in our Carolina clay that seems about 10% quartz.

@dhcall - Sorry, the blue boxes (maples, citrus, etc.) are my current idea for what I'd like to do in the future. The red stripe at the bottom represents the edge of the house, the green is the extent of the magnolia's canopy.

As far as cutting down "all" of the trees, they were almost entirely small saplings of mimosas and other invasive species and shrubs. I actually left a dozen or more well-developed two to five year old trees of other types intact, but they're higher up under the shaded grey area on my yard map so they don't really figure into my rehab plan. It's too shady from the numerous tall oaks up there to do much so I'll just let those small trees continue to develop underneath them.

As I mentioned in the OP, mechanized solutions are unfortunately a no-go due to limited spacing between houses (and landscaping).

@knuttle - I've thought about the sheet plastic "cooking" method, but it seems that many people report mixed success with that technique, plus it's going to remain relatively cool in this area for another two months or so. Wouldn't a bunch of wet cardboard essentially perform the same function as the plastic before the spring heat cranks up? There's also the added benefit of cardboard being free for me, while enough plastic would get moderately pricey. If plastic however is going to be a smarter solution, I'll spring for it.

I do have a mattock and have been plugging away at stumps for a couple of days now, I'll be keeping at that over the next month or two until they're all out.

I did not pick up that you had a free source of Cardboard. Free is always better than buying any day.

However I believe the cardboard would take longer than cooking them out.

If you have not already realized it the mattock is also a trenching, leveling, similar non standard use tool. I use mine to level slight raises in the yard. and trenching projects to improve drainage. As I already mentioned for digging into the clay and quartz we have in our yard.

We mulched a slight slope(5' rise over 15' width) by pinning old leaky garden hoses in terraces across the slope and mulching over it. We spaced the hose about 18" apart and pinned it down with landscape fabric pins or staples. After a hard rain, we do go out and re-cover some of them, but so far it's holding up for about a year. We used the cardboard on bottom to smother weeds and so far, we only have weeds coming from areas where we should have overlapped the cardboard more.

Pam