Thanks to everyone for their responses. I guess we have to rule out Japanese Maple since our front yard is south-facing and gets full sun. We were visualizing a tree with foliage that is full and rounded, and about 5-6 feet off the ground. We don't want anything shrub-like mainly for aesthetic reasons. We'd like the tree to shade the house in the summer and allow the sun to come through in the winter. Below the tree, we'll have succulents and drought-tolerant plants, with much of the ground cover being pea gravel. I'm still looking up all the various suggested trees on the web to see what they look like... but please keep your suggestions coming! Also, if you can recommend a good nursery in the San Diego area, I'd appreciate those as well!

Hi Janine. I hope you are able to find something that will fit your criteria and you can actually convince the school board and district to plant them. (Wish I had tree suggestions, but I am fairly new to the "planting" world.) I wish you good luck. I live in and will be having a little one starting school in Vista in August and am saddened to see so many trees cut down from schools. Especially around the playground area where the sun heats up all the equipment and makes it impossible for the children to safely play on it, due to it being too hot (think hot tush on a hot slide - no bueno). IF, and that is a big "if", they dont go for the trees, maybe you can have a backup plan for shading the playground. A good example of what I am thinking is at Sunset Park in San Marcos. My daughter is quite sensitive to the sun and this playground offers the best chance at her getting to get out and climb and excersise. I'll include the link to the park's website. It has a picture of the shading over the playground. Here is a link that might be useful: Sunset Park San Marcos CA

Looking at your inspiration photos, it seems that there are groundcover-like materials that can be grown there. I'm not familiar with what they might be so can't make recommendations. But it looks like a fairly lush look is available if one chooses the right material. Before doing any planting, I'd be considering if there is any possible way to widen the entrance walk, which is considerably undersized. The house would look more upscale with a much wider walk and you could probably eliminate one step in the process, making for an improved entry experience. I'd consider removing all of the raised edging. The beds it creates are much too tightly pinched to the house. A 5' to 6' minimum bed width would be more like it. In addition, the edge itself is so thin that it cheapens the overall look of the property. A masonry bed edge should be 8" wide, or wider, in order to be in scale with a house. If the edging didn't exist, it would be easy to place foundation plants where they should go. I find myself wishing the fence that encloses the back yard didn't come so close to the front entrance. By doing so, it messes up possible planting (the blank space between the windows is asking for a small tree) and generally looks a bit utilitarian so close to the front entrance. It would be nice if the back yard entrance could be framed with an arbor, but I don't know if that's possible with the way the architecture is laid out behind the fence. It would need to be explored. In the illustration I'm showing the types of plants that could go in certain locations. It's not means to be comprehensive. It's a start.

Nothing that I would recommend, sadly. We ended up turning a bit more of the formerly grassy area into landscaped space (creating tree rings and planting some young trees, etc.) and the rest we have ceded to oxalis and its brethren until we have some time and money to do a more extensive overhaul. At this stage we're thinking most seriously of creating some hardscaped space to extend the living space a bit and then putting down sod in the small space that remains for a play space. We are in Northern CA where grass is challenging and expensive to maintain as far as water use, so want to minimize that use but do also have kids (no longer as young as when I first posted this!) who run and play pretty actively in that space, despite its small size. While the weeds make me nuts, they have actually done a decent job of holding the soil and addressing the mud, for better or worse. With the rainy winter this year, some of the original no-mow grass has returned, too.