Thanks so much for everyone's time in posting. I think my response is going to be longer than my initial post! The lemon treemaybe I should take a picture from the sidewalk. The picture I posted was taken from my neighbors deck as the "before" of our roof. I think the tree looks taller from the sidewalk. And we like it covering the window. We can see out, but people on the sidewalk cant see in. All the yellow lemons are really very pretty from the inside, almost like Christmas ornaments! We dont spend much time out front because we have a large, gorgeous backyard. We get shade from several other trees. Matter of fact, I am always concerned about having too much shade to grow some of the plants I want. I really do feel very strongly about the natives. I volunteer on an annual native plant tour. I raise butterflies in the backyard. The front garden needs to be drought tolerant, deer resistant and butterfly friendly. I could probably accomplish that with Mediterranean, but the natives are important to me. Mediterranean plants are in very heavy use in our microclimate. Maybe Im having a Mediterranean backlash like I had a purple backlash several years ago. I guess part of wanting a "strong design element" in front is based on the fact that with natives, the front yard isnt going to be in bloom all year. I want it to be interesting to look at. Also, I spend a lot of time maintaining our backyard and really cant come up with a whole lot more time to spend on the front every week. I have driven around looking at front yards and I like the ones that look like the owners spent some time on the design rather than just an accidental collection of plants. But I dont want a highly formal design. I tend to be a plant collector in the backyard, so I want to have something a little more restrained in the front. I have seen dry streambeds done well and not so well. So I understand your concerns. I'll put that in the "don't do that" file. I should probably explore berms, but I dont know if they look any more natural than dry streambeds. One of the main plants I know I want is the vine maple and I want it to be well planted and integrated into the design. With our backyard, we could divide it into sections and work on it a little at the time. The front yard seems to need a cohesive plan. I will have to have some dirt hauled in, so if I am going to add any dirt, I probably want to do that before putting down the new flagstones. I'm not really seeing this as increasing the hardscape unless you are talking about the streambed as hardscape. We are basically going to redo the existing front walk and then where it going from the front walk to the driveway. Yes, the fence would go all the way to the drive. I was almost embarrassed to post that picture. The fence has been taken down in sections as weve had the work done on the driveway and the roof. Weve got to get rid of a ton of red rock and black plastic. Im under no illusions that this is going to be easy, but I want to make sure I dont get to a step and realize that Ive done something out of order or something that created another problem. Later, I am going to bust up the concrete between the sidewalk and street to get rid of those diamond shaped planters that have been so hard to deal with, but that is further down the road and I can easily separate that from the main project. Ill give more consideration to a post and rail fence painted white rather than a split rail left natural. My partner found a round stone patio with a bench in one of the library books I brought home. If I could find a bench that really spoke to me, I may go in that direction. Oh no! Now I'm feeling unfocused again and that makes me afraid that this project is going to keep stretching out... Yes, the chimney is quite the focal point! There are several like it in our neighborhood.

Today I spent a couple of hours at the US National Arboretum in Wash DC. Even though I have never been interested in conifers I did spend some time in their pinetum. I looked it over carefully and finally asked for examples of Chamaecyparis lawsoniana Not a single specimen in the Gotelli Collection nor anywhere else. We had a thread some time ago about this. For some reason Lawson Cypress doesn't like central & eastern US. No doubt that's why so many of us in the US were clueless as to the proper ID. In the pics, Lawson Cypress seems right at home on the Emerald Isle, no blarney.

Pictures that may help. I don't think it's MOSO now.? The branches have been trimmed about 4 feet on each side and trimmed up from the bottom. The succulus doesn't start till about 5 feet up. There is a ridge in the middle of the succulus.(Dark picture) I can't quite determine if it has a single ridge or not, but I think 2. Thanks for the help. The leaf picture size is deceptive, the leaf is only a little over 2 inches. The full heigth picture shows the culms with about 4 feet on each side of the branches cut off and trimmed up from the bottom. http://pic40.picturetrail.com/VOL361/7580886/14362285/215191238.jpg http://pic40.picturetrail.com/VOL361/7580886/14362285/215191250.jpg http://pic40.picturetrail.com/VOL361/7580886/14362285/215191280.jpg http://pic40.picturetrail.com/VOL361/7580886/14362285/215191254.jpg http://pic40.picturetrail.com/VOL361/7580886/14362285/215191262.jpg

Thanks for the info... lindsy ca, That's a great thumbs up for Delta and a nice thing to do to water down your gunite while out of town. I am going to send them my design tommorrow and see what they can do for me. Thanks for the tip on Adams Tile and Plaster as well. Have not heard of them but will be calling them tommorrow as well. Aquaman, Nice looking pool and landscaping- very similair to what we are going for accept the back edge of our pool will be set slightly into the slope of our backyard. We are looking at doing a raised bond beam along the back wall, with a little rock work and water feature and then a free form along the front side. I have heard good things about Eric Johnson as well, and they seem to have done A LOT of pools around here. Thanks for the info on steel and plumbing contractors. I have the fewest references on these two contractors so growing that list a bit would be great. Seems to be a ton of people in this area who have done owner/build. The more I look into it, the more people I find who have done it. As a matter of fact, I have not yet run into a single person who did owner/build and had a bad experience from it. That's 10 to 12 people so far, all who built their own pool, and were pleased enough with the experience to say they would certianly do it again. I am putting my equipment list together now, so my design, engineering, and equipment list will be posted for anyone's critique by next week.