You found some good ones, some mediocre ones and one to definitely avoid. Starting with my personal favs... Northern Red Oak. Huge tree. Fast growing. very desirable. Godd fall color. Big leaves Bur oak. The same but without the fall color and not as fast growing. Amalanchier (aka serviceberry) very nice tree. It is a small tree. I'd recommend it for use with a small grouping of them for massing effect of the flowers, berries and fall foliage. You should note however that these send up suckers big time which means you'll have to get out there 2-3 times a season to cut them unless you want it to turn into a multistemmed colony. Would also make a nice specimen tree for a small front yard. The hawthorns can be variable. The best on the market right now is probably winter king. It's another small tree with a wide-spreading canopy. Freemans maple is a cross between an undesirable species, silver maple and a desireable species, red maple. This hybrid is advantageous for folks out west with alkaline soils that silver maple tolerates but red maple doesn't. If this soil issue is not a concern for you, I would recommend red maple instead. There are countless cultivars like october glory, red sunset and the list goes on and on. There are some issues I have with autumn blaze maples but I won't get into that. Hackberry. On the blah side. Has some issues with pest/disease but tolerant of tough sites. Not the most ornamental of the bunch but wildlife is attracted to the fruit. Norway maple is an exotic maple that has become a pest species in a portion of the country. They are slow growing and usually have poor to fair fall color. They come in all shapes and sizes though. Most look like a dense lollipop. A far better alternative to norway maple is sugar maple. Depending on the use, sugar maple is not a good choice such as for a street tree as they are not as tolerant of road salts and urban stresses. I don't know if that's an issue though. Personally, I'd plant a sugar maple instead and ask your nursery why they are selling an invasive species like norway maple. If you want more of a lollipop with med-fast rate of growth, October Glory Red Maple. Ask for it by name.

dibbit, i'm glad you looked up about the mayapples! here i was, thinking i'd ingested something horribly toxic as a kid. (sort of like the folks who grew up eating fiddle heads, only to discover in the past few yrs one of the main types is pretty carcinogenic). we never ate many of them- they are pretty sour, like sourweed/grass (oxalis), so i never discovered the laxative part. lol. but they are good. wouldn't be surprised if the foliage is poisonous, though. they have pretty white flowers in april, too. and yes, they do go dormant pretty quickly. mine are usually gone by june. rather than rounding them up, if you really don't want to live with them, please consider looking up ncnps. someone will be happy to come and get them. i think they look like fairy parasols. i still think the 'grass' is river cane or switch cane. it needs really ideal conditions to get big, and i often see it growing at only a couple feet high. it gets taller in the woods near creeks than in the sun or an open area. they are in the grass family, which is why it may appear as grass. if the stems are woody, though, i'd lay money it's one of the arundinarias. japanese stilt grass isn't up yet, and it doesn't get woody stems anyhow. if you mowed it off repeatedly, eventually the roots would starve and stop trying to grow the canes. probably take quite a while, though- boos are pernicious.

Alright, I'll put my two bits in here. If it were me, I'd start with two or three lasagna beds using cardboard to cover grass starting at the lake's edge about 12-15 feet each, and the six feet deep. However, I would make large, soft curves on the proximal edge. As time, money and materials become available, you can continue to extend the shoreline. To these beds I would add ornamental grasses like fakahatchee grass (the regular gets quite big, and there's a dwarf type also). Use these in clumps of 3 or 5 as space allows. Maybe a nearby wax myrtle for the birds. I would then add things that give color and look good on slopes like rusellia equisetiformis and plumbago. Again in odd numbers. These look great on slopes and require nothing. Other things to consider are species canna near the water (less likely to get rust or leaf rollers) such as flaccida, or warcsewiczi (/sp?). You can grow the latter from seeds easily and I would plant as many as you can to cover ground. The foliage is pretty. However, these do require maintenance of cutting the old stalks. A foot or so from the proximal edge, a carefree groundcover like acalypha repens or maybe perennial peanut (?), which can be edged, would tie the look of the whole bed/s together. Lastly, use the lake to extend your beds by planting pickerel weed or alligator flag in large clumps. By the way, your yard is beautiful. I can see why you love the yard! Anna

Although the books say it's only hardy to Z6, Bluestem says Z4, and he's a cold climate ornamental grass specialist. Check out the website for other ideas. He has some great pics of mass plantings of OG's. Here is a link that might be useful: Bluestem