Adding to the list of perennial vegetables: ASPARAGUS RHUBARB (though the rhubarb leaves are toxic) stems are delicious  cooked with sugar to make compote - to go with roasted meat dishes, - or served with cream as desert, - or on bisquits as rhubarb shortcake, - or over pancakes, or pound cake, or other cakes,  or prepared w/strawberries for pie fillings. My parents grew rhubarb in heavy, moist soil in shade. Their rhubarb grew huge. Slender, red stems were considered superior; thick stems were avoided (being too watery). Green-stemmed rhubarb was considered inferior and was never grown. To prep rhubarb: cut off leaves and discard. Wash, dry, & cut stems into 1-inch slices across. Don't peel.

One person's exotic crop, is another person's....potatoes! Potatoes are my exotic crop. Hey, don't laugh! I grew up with chayote squash but unable to grow potatoes (they do not grow well in the tropics). I did not realize until recently that: -potatoes will not form tubers in the heat. -potatoes need a low pH. How low? I have seen different figures. I guess I should start a thread on common (non exotic) crops. OK, so I managed to grow enough of them for one meal. This is terrible, because they were the best potatoes I ever tasted, and now I want more. I am trying again. I got enough potatoes (little bitty ones) that I can use them as seed. I will manage to grow potatoes some day. Some say it is easy. I started chayote squash in zone 10, now I will start again in zone 9. I even have a place for them. Very easy to start, get some at grocery stores that do not treat their produce. I got mine at a Mexican food store. It started growing sprouts all by itself, sure looks like an alien type of veggie. Very interesting indeed. I like it in creole dishes, if I call it mirliton then it really sounds exotic even to me! Some more: Methi greens (just use the fenugreek seeds from Indian stores). Aloo methi, yum yum.... Gai lan. I love it but it did not do too well for me. Should I try again? Pak choi. This does great and I will continue to grow them. I would like bananas so I need to take a cutting and transplant or something. I would prefer the plantain type of bananas. Some day I will manage to grow an avocado tree and get avocados. I am growing artichokes but this is not exotic to me, maybe to you? Corn! now that is exotic, not only in Europe but also in Los Angeles. Amaranth could be considered exotic? I grew it and now I have heaps of amaranth volunteers. I wanted it to reseed, but not that much!

If you still have annona squamosa seeds, I can trade you a couple of potted gojiberry bushes for them. If interested contact me at ctboring@yahoo.com.

Katie, the property is lovely! Welcome to the New Eng forum. Before doing anything else, I would walk around the property taking lots of photos. It will give you a record of where you started and so give you a way to measure progress, help you plan, and assist in IDing and keeping track of what is there now that might benefit from moving to another spot. IME, things that look fairly awful can often be trimmed back and replanted elsewhere and if appropriately positioned can become lovely plants. At my previous house I planted a wooded slope entirely with half-dead rhododendrons that were taken to the dump by a local wholesale nursery. I hard pruned them, planted them, and the current homeowner now has a maintenance-free area that is spectacular in spring when the rhodies are blooming, and quietly lovely the rest of the year as the native groundcovers have returned. Before planting, it was a log landing where logs were stockpiled and the log trucks were loaded. Plants can be surprisingly expensive, so any that you can save that might be useful either as a permanent plant or as a temporary placeholder should be kept. Also, being on a hill, bare ground won't be your friend. Besides the issues with weed seeds sprouting, you will find that any large precipitation events or snow melt will cause erosion, so ground will always need to be covered, either by plants or by a layer of leaves. So any hostas that you haven't thrown out, keep to plant in beds you have cleared, and then use leaves to mulch around them. It doesn't have to be a forever planting, but will be low maintenance and will reduce the amount of weeding you will have to do by blocking light. The leaves will make any weeds that do sprout easier to pull. You may also find that you like hostas if planted with other groundcovers and shade perennials rather than on their own. I would take photos of the vines and shrubs in your beds. Be sure to take at least one of the whole bush and one that shows a branch or two relatively close up. There is a Name that Plant forum where you can get them IDed and then you can decide if you can use them, and if not, the best way to remove them. I have two favorite tools for clearing brush and saplings: a pair of oversized adjustable pliers which I use to try pulling anything of less than 1/2" diameter, since if you get the roots out it can't resprout, and a super-duty weed whacker that has in addition to the string trimmer (which rarely gets used), two metal blades, one for softer stems like brambles, and one for woody stems up to 2" or so. After that DH gets out the chainsaw. Anything that I can't pull up by the roots with my pliers, I cut to the ground and use a squirt bottle of concentrated glysophate herbicide to put a thin line on the outer rim of the fresh cut surface just where the bark meets the wood. Sometimes I need to repeat this twice over the course of a couple of years, but that's usually enough to kill anything. Be sure to wear appropriate clothing, especially gloves and eye protection. I also wear long sleeves and pants since we have a lot of poison ivy, and when using power tools I use ear protection as well. You may find your lot too steep for a brush hog, which is essentially a large scale, heavy duty mower that can cut through brush. Some are walk behind, and we have a tractor-pulled brush hog. They are great in the right circumstance, but I think would be quite challenging to use on your property. I notice you have some groundcovers - photo three looks like it might be Vinca AKA periwinkle AKA myrtle, and you mentioned pachysandra. Neither are spectacular, but in the right setting such as used under shrubs, will help make borders that seem to fit your needs for low maintenance and will help provide a transition from lawn to woods. There are lots and lots of other groundcovers and low-maintenance shade perennials and shrubs you can use, and the combination of various shapes, textures and colors can give you a lovely garden. Here is Marie's, which is one of the most gorgeous shade gardens I've ever seen. She has a suburban lot that's smaller than yours but is planted border to border, and there is some lawn. Mine is more interspersed into the edges of my native woodlands. Native rhododendron hybrids on a shady slope This spot has almost full shade and has various groundcovers plus a mountain laurel and 2 rhododendrons, one evergreen and one deciduous. There are several other rhodies along this woodland edge, but I couldn't find a decent photo of it. This area I have planted with shade-tolerant deciduous flowering trees and shrubs and am slowly filling in with native groundcovers. Other than the grassy area it is all mulched with free wood shavings and leaves. (Please pardon the trays of potted seedlings which spent the winter here out of the way of the plow.) The two threads linked below have shade plant ideas, and you might well be able to get divisions of some of these plants at local plant swaps or from gardeners here who are thinning things out. Zone 6 Shade Garden plant help Easy shade-tolerant ground cover? Since you want lawn, I'd start by figuring out your areas of at least half day sun (preferably more) and designating those as lawn. You can have grass in other areas, but in all reality, you won't want to spend the time trying to make the whole thing look wonderful - it would be a never-ending, unsuccessful chore. And on the positive side, the areas that don't grow as strongly won't need mowing as often. In New England, September is the best time to seed a lawn since the ground is warm, but the days are shorter and starting to cool off some, so the grass will sprout, but be less likely to be water stressed. There are seed mixtures for shade as well as for sun, so you will want to taylor what you plant to the amount of sun. With your slope, you may find that hydroseeding is more successful since the seed is mixed with cellulose mulch and sprayed on, so it is less likely to wash downhill if you have a heavy rain. As others have said, however, you may find that your current grass comes back better than expected once the weather warms up. One grass-like plant that grows well for me in shade is the native sedge Carex pensylvanica which grows to perhaps 6" and never needs mowing. I have quite a bit of it growing naturally. Your former pool area looks nice and flat now, so I would decide how you want to use that: lawn, veggie gardens, ornamental gardens, patio, putting green, or whatever, or even a combination of the two. I think if sunny enough, a round lawn with a rim of low maintenance flowering perennials would be lovely, and I've seen some gorgeous round ornamental and veggie gardens. A word of caution about fire . . . You live in an area with a lot of combustible material, and most towns have ordinances that control what, when, and how you can burn for reasons of safety. Wildfire/brushfires in wooded housing are a nightmare for firefighters. So for instance in my town, you need a permit unless snow completely covers the ground, and permits are only granted after 5:00 when most of the town's volunteer firefighters are available. This time of year (after snowmelt and before green-up) is the worst for brush fires since the surface of the ground usually has lots of fuel, and the sun is bright enough to dry the surface quickly, even in the woods. Sparks can start a fire that with a little wind can quickly get out of control. If I were in your situation, I wouldn't do any burning of debris since it will rot down on its own and will improve your soil in the process. We either mow leaves into the lawn or compost them (your blowing them into the woods or onto the perimeter beds to control weeds is just fine if you don't want to formally compost them in piles) and sticks can be piled out of sight in the woods to slowly decompose. There are many animals that will value brush piles for shelter. Remember that you don't need to do everything at once. I like to do an overall general plan that shows where I will have lawn, high maintenance ornamental beds, low maintenance ornamental beds, paths, compost, sitting areas, etc., but then I work on just one or two areas at a time. This time of year is great for removing woody weeds since the ground is soft and moist and not much is growing yet. See if you could print several copies of your plot plan and find an elevation map to help as well, and you can use those to try out ideas on paper. Think about things such as areas for trash and compost, how you will get from place to place (steps, formal paths, over the grass, etc.), areas for special interests such as badminton or other sports or bird feeders, sitting areas as well as gardens you can see from windows in the house (such as in an office or by the kitchen sink or from the couch) and whether building terraces with walls to increase your flat areas is worth the work. Once you have a plan, you can decide how to best put your vision into place a piece at a time. As others have said, having mostly lush lawn with all your trees and the slope isn't reasonable, but you can have a beautiful yard with at least some nice lawn and various other beautiful areas to enjoy.