A few more pictures. It was still sleeting and lighting conditions sucked. Perhaps I should have tried the flash. Metasequoia 'Ogon' Neighbor's old silver maple (Acer saccharinum) giving up more branches. Just missed the power lines. I warned them lol. Metasequoia regular Malus x 'Prairie Fire' Nyssa Sylvatica 'Wild Fire' - a bit of maroon to the stems More Ilex Opaca. Interestingly I could break the ice off w/o visibly damaging the foliage.

Thank you everyone! I'm in Sonoma County, in the North Bay Area, Sunset zone 14. Are you sure 15'-20' would be enough? I was thinking more along the lines of 30-40', but I'm really bad at estimating how large things are/need to be. My Mother's top choice would be a Mimosa tree because we see them around town doing so well and they are beautiful. I've heard that mimosas tend to create lots of seedlings, but our neighbor has a mimosa tree and we haven't noticed any seedlings on our property in the 5 years we've been living here. We have a fig tree already, it's actually further up the field and from the right angle it does exactly what I want the new tree to do. I could plant a different fruit tree there, but I was under the impression it would need a larger tree than I had planned on putting in my orchard. Although nut trees tend to grow pretty large, maybe a walnut would be good? I'll have to check my Sunset book again, I looked under 'Plants for growing under oaks' and they only listed shrubs, perennials, etc. Further study told me I should absolutely not plant a Bay Laurel tree, but other than that I'm still pretty clueless. I will return to my Sunset guide, and maybe stop by the 'tree farm' that is close to my house. They have a vested interest in selling me something but are very knowledgeable about growing trees in this area, so it should be helpful. Thanks again, I will return with a list of potential trees I'm thinking of ; )

Veronica, I feed my rabbits an alfalfa pellet based diet and a high end one at that. Alfalfa is the #1 ingredient in the bag. I go through about 50-60 lbs of pellets a week. The rabbits also are free fed quality grass hay from our farm in PA, I get a trailer load a year as well as natural foods from the garden and I feed some comfrey and Bidens Alba which is a local plentiful weed. The rabbits love the Bidens Alba, I probably feed 100 lbs of it a week and it is edible by us humans as well. The alfalfa could be the reason the manure is so rich but unlike the alfalfa pellets you can dump the fresh rabbit manure on the garden with no worries of burning. I don't put the manure on fresh as after it drops through the wire it goes in to containers where black soldier fly larvae consume the waste and what goes to the garden is basically their manure. It comes out as a rather odd soil like substance, kind of dry and very crumbly. I give it to all the plants, well most all the plants except the blueberries (it is too alkaline). In my opinion though the rabbits break the food down and the end result (pun intended) is better than just using the alfalfa. I guess an easy way to find out would be to use just alfalfa pellets on some plants and the manure on the others. I know some people sell the rabbit manure for absolutely silly prices but it can be bought cheaply and even acquired for free as a lot of people have pet rabbits. Great idea on the new beds. For what it is worth I think most of the trouble people have here is simply due to the poor soil. The plants get stressed because of the conditions be they soil or temps or humidity. Once you hit that tipping point of survival the game is over. I can't control the temperature and I can't control the humidity so I concentrate on building the soil. If the time and effort is taken to first build the soil and feed it the garden grows itself and makes you look like you know what you are doing. I was talking to Silvia about this and I was telling her I get no nematode damage at all on my plants roots, not even a little. I guess they do not like the rabbit manure at all.

Thanks all for the suggestions! I probably should have explained better in the first place. House is up on a naturally forming slope, with the asphalt driveway rising steeply to meet in. After the snow melted, we noticed that what had been shallow-rooted grass off to the side driveway apex was now about an inch lower, bald, rocky, and pocked with ridges from the water runoff. This area extends ~1-2 feet horizontally before dropping down ~4 feet at a ~45 degree angle. Our idea had been to cut a "L" in the side of the slope, reinforce the earthen backstop with a small rock wall, and level the top area with soil, in effect creating a bit of a terrace for the slope to slow down what we worried might erode more in the coming years (which could eat away the earthen support under the asphalt in our paranoid minds). In the soil up top (we would supplement the dry, rocky, clay) we hoped to plant something pretty-- enough to bring color and foliage most of the year and anchor the top soil a bit. As it was to be to the side of the drive, we were hoping for something with a little vertical height, which might act as a natural flag during winter (as we learned the hard way this year, when the hired plowman drove off the driveway and over a small cobblestone ringed flowerbed buried under the snow). We saw heather at a nursery the prior weekend and thought it looked pretty, offered a little height, and might look nice on a hillside here and also in another part of the yard. Thanks again and hope the description was more helpful (sorry--- haven't figured out how to post pics yet)