Thank you yaardvark. i just uploaded some pics as you suggested for the front yard. new user so bear with me - for some reason houzz wouldn't let me upload more than two. i will try and edit/add more through comments. hooveb - that's exactly right. Several contractors would not even come out to give a quote unless the project was a minimum $50k. Your drip irrigation story sounds awesome. I think we know what we want but the lowest possible option still comes out to about $45k. I am drawing a blank as to what we need to outsource to the contractor and what part we can do ourselves. We have been mulling over this project for over a year now. Spoken with 3 or 4 contractors, looked at lots of houses and millions of pictures. Information overload perhaps because i still can't seem to make it work. As I said, we know what we want. we want to extend the patio area (concrete/pavers) to twice the existing size to provide entertaining/play space. Cost of that is $10k minimum, possibly more. The other half of the backyard would have remained lawn/turf but with better irrigation since artificial turf would be even more expensive and we don't like it much. Some sort of focal point in the backyard would be nice but an appropriately sized water fountain would add another $5-$8k so nixed that. We were considering adding a retaining wall on the back end of the backyard and on the right side and extend the sidewalk but that's another $10k so nixed most of it. We want to add a fire pit and some seating. We want to extend the concrete sidewalk (sideyard), build steps going up to the front of the house, add some trees that will eventually provide shade. Veggie garden on the other side of the side yard. We ruled out bbq/island etc. We had also ruled out gravel/decomposed granite (except in the veggie garden area) as being hard on the feet and tough to maintain but I am wondering if we can work that into the design somehow to keep costs down. kiminipl - house faces North east. Backyard faces southwest and as I said, we get relentless sun. There were three ficus trees in the corners of the backyard that we had to take down because the roots were terribly invasive but it made things worse from a shade perspective. garden gal - thank you for your perspective. I will check out the link. I have scoured pics on bewaterwise.com, houzz for drought tolerant plants etc... just can't seem to figure out the right plan for us with the budget we have in mind. As I said.. help/ideas/perspective on actual situation (looking at the pics) would be much appreciated. thank you all so much!

There are a lot of smaller evergreens that could be a foundation planting. Some very nice dwarf white pines for example, or even a dwarf Japanese pine if you want to go spendy . . . Smaller yews since you don't have deer. Gorgeous weeping dwarf hemlocks . . . The ubiquitous blue spruce not a good idea in a damper climate like WI, very susceptible to disease. Some gorgeous weeping options though. Almost every evergreen has a smaller and/or weeping form, but not available in common big box stores, have to go to a nursery specializing in them . . .

@TJ hello neighbor! I never thought of a gold cascading plant. Good point. Yes, those wires go to that pole. There use to be approx 60ft Colorado spruce there on that side that we took down because it was dead inside, declining, caused trouble with the wires and over growing to the walk way. I do agree we need something there again for the sake of every view point. Everything is so flat now, and there are all kind of cable, phone, electric wires merging right at the part of the house. Just trying to decide on what type. Something like what you suggested, or something branchy and airy. Here is a photo with the tree before it was taken down. Being from the same area, how do you find the disease and pest issues with the confiers to be? I'm a bit paranoid about that with the, especially with the clay soil. We also have those black walnuts trees that seem to cause some people trouble. Ours is in the back yard at least. Maybe I'm worried for nothing. Maybe just gun shy view because of the images of the neglected junipers and such that look so sickly or cumbersome.

The right and left halves of the main house are not the same conditions and require either different shrubs, or, it's possible to use the same type but trim to different heights. (It is the top of all these shrubs that will be trimmed at a uniform height relative to the window bottoms.) I don't think we're to the point of calling for the right-hand shrubs to be removed, as we haven't seen good, face-on pictures of them with the windows in the background. I'm pretty confident that all the other shrubs should be removed based on their size and position. "... the bottom of the window trim is about 4 feet above ground on the left side, so max plant height should be just below that?" That would be my goal. If new shrubs are treated well -- never going dry, but not being constantly we either, and given some fertilizer, they usually can get up to decent size within a couple of years. They only need to be 3 1/2' high. ",,, should i push the HOA on some solution to cover the electrical box in front corner?" You have to be careful what you wish for. Sometimes the "cover" is more offensive than the box being covered, as the overall "object" can grow exponentially in size. I don't think it's necessary to cover the entire box per se. If there was a judiciously planted, arching foliage grass or two that covered mainly the bottom half, that would take care of the main offense. For the top half, I don't know how much you'd be willing to apply paint, but if in my yard, I'd be considering a neutral/camouflaged/non-offensive color ... and asking permission after the fact. But then, I would never live in HOA place so you'd likely be up against forces I couldn't anticipate or predict. I think you have the wrong idea about how to treat the holly tree. It is not the top of the tree that gets trimmed to keep it in check. It is the bottom of the canopy that gets limbed up so as to get out of the way of all ground activities, and so as to not "smother" the lower portion of the house. It is VASTLY easier to maintain this as a small tree than it is to maintain it as a giant shrub. The trunk(s) are retained while all the side branching is removed. One is visually safe to de-limb up to 50% of the total plant height (which would now be to the top of your garage windows. Next year, it will be a little more.) I'm sure you've noticed that whenever a plant has a lot of foliage removed, it turns around quickly and grows a bunch more somewhere else. Here, that somewhere else would be at what remains of the upper portion of the tree, especially the top. Consequently, after you remove limbs & branches to 50% of the height and the tree grows taller, it will automatically create a new ratio that has it appearing as though you only removed limbs & branches to 40% of the tree's total height. Keep it's back side trimmed about 12" away from the wall, which will never be noticed from the front. I'm sure this holly tree is planted too close to the house (as is the case wherever a builder installs a landscape.) You have the choice to accept its placement as long as you can, or get rid of it and start over with another tree better positioned. If you decide on the latter, it may be possible to start a new tree while the old one stands and then cut it down a bit later.