STOP! You are flinging money, plants and pavers at a problem before you know what the problem is. And you can't move plants like you do furniture - every time you dig them up and move them, you set back their growth a few years. Before you do anything else, draw up a plan of the back yard, to scale and with measurements. See the link below for detailed how-to. On one copy of it, put is what is already there. On a second copy, draw up your final plan. Where do you live (city/state)? All zone 7s are not created equal when it comes to rainfall and summer temps. The brickwork is GREAT! Don't mess with it unless you absolutely have to. 1 - The fastest way to make the parking lot vanish is with a trellis or two and some vines, or some bamboo in raised bed or beds ... a privacy screen. 2 - Learn to plant trees ... a 3 1/2 foot deep hole in clay soil, filled with the best planting mix in the world, is just a big flower pot. It won't drain and the tree's roots will not leave the hole. Recommended practice is to dig a hole as deep as the tree's existing root ball and several times wider than the root ball. Do not amend the soil, just put the tree in and backfill, then mulch. 3 - Instead of a magpie collection of plants, repeat plant material ... several repetitions of the bamboo along the fence can block undesireable sights and please the eye. Part of a landscape plan is to identify the needed plants by what the landscape NEEDS in that area: think function first, not "ooooh look at the purty tree". If you want all-year blocking of that parking lot, a deciduous tree won't do it as well as something evergreen 4 - Don't use sod in a tiny back yard. It's almost as much work to care for a tiny patch as a whole lawn, and it chops up the area visually, making it smaller. I'd treat the area like a Manhattan roof garden or a Mexican or New Orleans interior garden, with pavement, raised beds with seating around the edges, using the plants as accessories and problem solvers. treat it like an outdoor great room and entertainment area: cooking and eating zone, lounging and talking zone. Here is a link that might be useful: DIY Landscape design

The people who planted trees at my Walmart are pretty dumb and were all out for the money. They planted Overcup oaks (Q. lyrata) which are not well adapted here (alkaline soil and water) and they leaf out a month later than everything else. They also planted Live oaks about 5 feet apart from each other then replaced one after someone hit it. Then someone hit the other one. It goes on and on..... Sounds like a failure of land-use regulation and tree standards to me. wrt the elm foto upthread, often what happens with these developers is they slap in the cheapest stock they can get, so not only do you get the extra heat in the parking lot making things tough, you get suboptimal trees being slapped in to compacted soil. Parking lots are one of my pet peeves. Dan

As you are turning, the arc carved by your front wheels is a lot larger than that described by your back wheels. So you need a good deal more space to get parked in the proper position when driving in than when backing in - let your front wheels describe that larger arc mainly in the area of the driving lane, rather than between two cars. Especially if the space is narrow - if you're dealing with narrow spaces, all the more reason to go to the slight effort of learning how to back up into a precise space, especially when your mirrors can show where you're going. Whether having driven through a parking space to park facing out in the far space, or having backed into it, I estimate that about 20% of the vehicles in most parking areas around here are parked so that they can drive out, rather than back out. As for overhanging a sidewalk when having backed into a space ... how much brain power does it take to remember how much difference there is between the overhang at the front or the back wheels? And when you leave the car, check whether you're overhanging a sidewalk ... and if you are, climb back in and move the darn thing! You'll only have to do that once or twice to learn where to stop. We don`t have angled spots in major parking lots around here, and traffic beside the parking spaces can be in either direction. As far as I can see, when I`m driving out of a spot, I have a lot more visibility than when backing out, especially if next to a large vehicle. For both oncoming vehicles and pedestrians ... and let`s not forget how many of the walkers are engrossed in those little thingies that seem glued to their hands - that light up on one side, you know? But if you hit one - would they want to admit that they were so engrossed in reading or texting ... that they weren't watching where they were going? As for putting at risk someone who may be approaching the far space, expecting to park there ... ... you do have eyes, don't you? Haven't you been taught from an early age to watch where you're going? (And hasn't s/he?) And anyone who hotshots while driving wherever in a parking lot ... ... could be called a jackass? (Especially when backing up, semi-blindly). Just my partially/more or less humble opinion. ole joyful

One of an older neighbors favorite stories was seeing a woman coming up to the road with lots of pretty red vining leaves she'd gathered, telling him aren't these gorgeous - at which point he informed her they're poison oak. New growth might have the red tinge, generally green in summer, red in fall - but if you see something that looks like it regardless of seasons, be careful. CA doesn't have poison ivy (I'm originally form New England and the Girl Scouts always tried to educate us on that one) but we certainly have poison oak. One of the kids I'd hired to weed whack said his mom used to get it from doing their laundry. If I'm working outside near brush now - I stand in front of the washer when done with garden gloves still on - everything goes in with the gloves going last (I have forested acres). Always have the spray calamine in my first aide drawer - love the stuff. The other great tip is if you think you brushed against it - wash that area with dish soap - cuts the oils in it that make it stick. 5Birdy - those Moosa creek pictures are great. Here's the U.C. info - can look like a shrub (the Las Pilatas pic) or vine http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7431.html