you need some height and visual breaks in my opinion, especially around the patio. your yard will feel cozier as well as look bigger if you cut it up into "rooms" with "walls". break you line of sight and it will become much more interesting. the tendency is to put lawn in the center and beds around the fence line. you have a good bed in the middle by the patiomaximize this break with something big and substantial with height. i would look to put some tall shrubs around the patio and enclose that room. you might also want to think about having a pergola or free standing arbor on the patio to give you some shade and make a cozy place to sit around the table in the summer without being baked. plant a grape, trumpet vine or wysteria to leaf out for shade. i would not recommend a cheap square aluminum gazebo from costco as much as i would recommend doing something more substantial. maybe something with white pillars and a mutli-layered cedar top. i think that would fit the space and the style of the house.

you also need some real trees. landscapers in Utah apparently are afraid of trees that get larger than 15'. you have a lot of small and medium sized tree species. i could be wrong as it is hard to tell tree species from the photo, but it looks like a lot of flowering fruit trees. i would plant something that will get huge on the west and maybe right in the middle and give you some shade (look for open trees like ash, oak or alder so you can grow under them and be careful of trees with a lot of small seeds like elm because of the pool). granted this idea will do nothing for the wedding, but it is an long-term idea. you cannot have too many large trees and dappled shade in Utah with our blast furnace summers. it will help with you water consumption a bit as well. this will help break up the open space and pull you eyes upward and contrary to intuition will help the yard feel larger. a quarter acre forest feels bigger than a full acre of grass.

i would also try some vines on the vinyl fence (make sure you neighbors are ok with that). try and soften the stark white. trumpet vines, grapes, and virginia creeper come to mind for large coverage. all vines do require some once yearly pruning and cleaning to keep nice. so there is some maintenance involved, but less than a lawn.

as far as your beds for this summer, daisies, coneflowers and mums are relatively cheap and will come back year after year and get bigger. ideally you would have put them in last fall for a bigger plant this year. in fall you cut them to the ground. day lilies also do great here as do iris. iris will likely be fading by the wedding, but the daylilies will be in full bloom most of the summer. strawberries make a great ground cover if they get enough water and a cheap ($7 for 12+) as bare root this time of year and grow and spread quickly. as are petunias. fertilizes and water the petunia a lot and they will be great by july if you get them in quickly. the petunia you will have to replace yearly and pyll out in the fall.

for the wetter areas, try hibiscus (hardy types). they will be beautiful in midsummer. if these areas are constantly muddle, you have a problem. you can plant cattails or some bog plants or find the source of the problem. i would bet you don't have a spring. your house is built in far from where a spring would be likely. if there was ground water there before construction there would have been cottonwood trees. i bet your spring is a leaking sprinkler or some other irrigation issue. if it is not something that can be fixed alder or cypres trees can grow in wet areas as can river birch and some maples and swamp oak.

my advice is to hire this out if it does not come naturally to you. look in magazines and books and take those picture to the landscaper and say "i want it to look like this for this reason" and let them choose plants that fit out climate to replicate the effect you liked (most of the good garden books show new england gardens and would require a ton of water and more shade that what you have. have them plant for the long term and then fill in all the open spaces with something that covers the dirt quickly like petunias for the wedding. as the shrubs and perennials grow over the years you will need less and less annuals and have less maintenance.

you have a good canvas and have some good division that just need to be raised. (look at stevation's yard on his blog for a great local example of how to lift those beds and get some good height). you have a water feature which is great. just divide and layer the yard a get some more shade and your yard will be amazing.

look at the garden store on 7th east and 7th south. they have a display garden in the back that might give you some ideas. they (the owners) also have design services. no idea what they charge, but they are better than any landscaper or landscape architect i know. their display garden pales in comparison to their house landscaping. i won't give you the home address, but they might. it was featured in the premier issue of utah home and garden magazine if you want to look it up at the library. red butte garden in another good place for inspiration and plant names (unfortunately most is still dormant).

probably more than you wanted to do or hear. if you just need plants, local nurseries will give you the best info on what does good here and the big boxes the best prices, but you have a limited selection and no information.

good luck

kliddle, I appreciate your thoughts! You made some good points I hadn't thought about. We do have some oak trees in the back corner by the water feature but you're right, all the others aren't very big trees! I also hadn't thought about planting some bigger shrubs near the patio to cozy it up. Great suggestion! We also know we need some height & texture to break up the back of the house but haven't figured what or how to go about it.
The white fence was our biggest pet peeve when we talked to the landscape designer. He did do a good job of covering it without blocking our view of the mountains. It fills in quite nicely in the summer. We didn't do anything around the trampoline yet- that's another phase of the project when we do the raised garden beds.
We are planning on putting a gazebo on the patio. The reason we haven't is because we can't seem to find just the right thing. We know it has to look solid & substantial (and be no maintenance). We've gotten a couple of bids for different ideas but the ones we like are tens of thousands of $$$. So, little by little. For now, patio umbrellas will have to do it.
Thanks again for all your great suggestions. Sounds like I need to run to the nursery and plant my flowers ASAP. Will they be okay if it freezes again?

If you're planting perennials that are hardy here, and IF the nursery has been keeping them outside all the time for several weeks, THEN I'd say it's safe to plant them now. They can survive freezes.

But if they're annuals, the general rule around here is to wait till Mother's Day to plant. That usually avoids any killing frosts.

Your summer photo looks very nice, and it's amazing how rich it looks compared to the winter photos (of course)!

For the damp areas, you might want to try some red-twig dogwood shrubs. They can handle moisture and will give you a good medium-sized shrub (3' or so) with awesome bright red branches that liven up the winter landscape as well as looking good in the growing season. I have several of these. I also have yellow-twig dogwoods, and they get nice red branches in the winter too. I think they can handle moist soil, too. Although I would recommend mixing a lot of compost into the soil there if it's too clayish. Clay is a tough medium to grow in but if you add a good amount of organic matter, like compost, it becomes pretty good.

I found a link to a short list of moisture-tolerant shrubs and trees here: http://www.greenwoodnursery.com/page.cfm/60153. But I would avoid the weeping willow they mention. Not good for pools -- lots of litter.

Sharla,

On your photo of last spring, what is the name of the pink flowering plant? My wife was very interested in it for adding color to our backyard.

Kliddle,

Your response makes me think that I should have posted my questions about landscape design here instead of there. Any ideas/input for me?

Thanks!

Here is a link that might be useful: Contemplation and Validation - of our backyard plans - in Landscape Design Forum

Also, I second Kendal's comments about the need for some big trees and his comment about probably having a leaking sprinkler pipe where you mentioned the thought that there might be an underground spring. It's much more likely to be a broken pipe than a spring.

And when you think of large trees as Kendal mentioned, think of those that are very long-lived to have lasting value. Unfortunately, most of them are not fast growers (oaks, maples, etc.). Well, I take that back if you plant London Plan (a kind of sycamore). It grows quite fast and has a good long lifespan. They have large leaves and produce more shade than some of the more open trees, so it depends on what you want. I love my London Plane tree. It's a great addition to the backyard. Someday, I'll hang a tire swing on a large branch when it's big enough.

Oh yeah, and be very careful with maples if you choose them. Find ones that are definitely not subject to iron chlorosis, which is a nutrient deficiency they get in our alkaline soils, causing the leaves to turn yellow. This is especially a concern with "red" maples (they're not really red-leaved all season -- just in the fall).

Cycler, I posted in the landscape design forum last year and got a lot of pushy responses telling me my beds weren't deep enough, I had to rip out lawn or move boulder walls to enlarge the beds, etc. They were more interested in hardscape advice than in plant selection. Since I was mostly interested in annual flower choices, I reposted in the annuals forum and got some great results. Some of the people in the landscape forum and the tree forum are a bit overbearing.

You should post here (in another thread so Sharla's thread doesn't get diverted) with your questions. You may also find the Rocky Mountain Gardening (RMG) forum will have lots of friendly advice. Both this forum and that one are great, friendly places, but the only advantage in RMG is that there are so many more people there. But then again, this forum is growing again, now that spring is here!

i second the london plain tree/sycamore comment by steve, but with a caution. they are very messy trees. they have three seasons first comes the itchy bomb season which bleeds into the bark dropping season then the leaf drop (first from fungus) then the actual leaf drop witch goes all winter into the next seed drop. they often look very bad in the late summer when the leaf fungus attacks. the leaves drop and the fungus spreads to the lawn. usually don't see the fungus in younger trees. and the leaves don't compost. they last years in this climate.

all that sounds bad, but nothing makes better dappled shade than a huge sycamore. and the size and speed of growth is great. our last house was on Laird avenue in SLC at about 14th east. the whole street is planted with 80 year old 100ft plus sycamore trees. it is so beautiful in the early summer the way the light filters through the relatively open branches. worth checking out if you are in the neighborhood. i did not mind the mess so much as the wind always worked in my favor an put most of my mess in the neighbors yards across the street. the bark and seeds where taken up with a lawn mower. the trees were always sprayed by the city for the fungus, but you can't spray a tree that tall and it did little to help. as much as we all complained about them, we would not allow the city to remove them like they wanted. love/hate relationship. the only part that really bothered me was the mess the seeds made in the pond. because of your pool i would caution you about putting one within 75 ft. but man, are they pretty trees. in England i saw some that were easily 12 feet in diameter. they made our 3 foot diameter tree look like a twig.

i now live on Princeton which has american elms which i would say is a great tree too if you did not have a pool. in spring it snows blizzards seeds.

if you like oaks, try a bur oak. they do well in crappy dry soil and with irrigation grow fairly quickly for an oak. they hold the leaves late into winter after the pool is closed and the leaves are the best thing for composting. they also stay fairly open and are not too dense like some maples you see in park strips so they won't block out all the sun. the only down side is the acorns which are about the size of a hazlenut. they are huge! if you have a pig or a local squirrel, you won't ever see them. acorns don't bother me but others don't like them. they would need a hurricane to blow around. the accorns rarely germinate, but the lawn mover can occasionally launch one into you shins ;) i bought one last year and have yet to put it in the ground. i won't see an acorn for 20 years, but we have squirrels. in fact i bought it for them as much as me.

there are many great trees. best to go to the nursery and talk to them about what is in stock. i would look for for something that gets large and relatively fast but does not drop anything during pool season or at least that will blow around and find the pool. also something open enough to grow lawn under. any tree is good in my opinion, but some work better than others especially if there is a water feature or pool.

let us know what you find/decide on.

stevation, we recently planted a red maple in the empty-for-2-years-reposessed-neighbor's yard, along our fence, to benefit from it's shade. What do I need to do to keep it healthy? Gosh, I really should't be trying this gardening stuff out since I don't know what the heck I'm doing! I just think Utahns don't plant enough trees!! ;)

Yes, we all need more trees. I saw something in the news that SL County wants to see 1 million trees planted in the next 10 years. I don't know how they plan to promote that, but it's a great goal.

Anyway, I think that's funny how you planted in the neighbor's yard. Reminds me of guerrilla gardening (http://www.guerrillagardening.org) where people sneak out at night and plant nice things to beautify neglected spaces.

Anyway, you DEFINITELY should be gardening, Sharla! Don't be daunted just because it can be complicated. It's not always complicated, and you'll learn some things along the way as you do it. It's so rewarding to grow stuff and see your accomplishments as they make your yard a nicer place.

As for the red maple, just watch it and see. It may be fine, but if the leaves get pale or yellow, it is getting iron chlorosis from our alkaline soil. It's not that we don't have enough iron, but it can't be used very well by some plants when they're in alkaline soils. These are usually trees or shrubs that came from back East or some other climate that has rich, acid, forest soils. Anyway, if that happens, post back here, and we can help you deal with the sick tree.

cyclewest, I have no idea what that pink flower is! The landscaper just put it in. Could it be an Obedient Plant? I saw something similar at the nursery today called that, and the pics online look close. Sorry I can't be of more help.

Looks like everyone has covered it well. Your yard has great bones which means that it's hard to make a mistake with plants when the hardscape elements look so great! What's lacking, IMO, is more evergreens. You have nice, permanent hardscape but not permanent softscape to continually soften the landscape.

I'd look at some columnar evergreens for the fence and some low, mounding ones for the beds. The good news is that they also won't add more litter that's bad for the pool! Stuff like prostrate cedars or 'slowmound' mugos for the mounders and a Weeping White Spruce, Colunmar Scotch Pine, and/or Columnar Blue Spruce for the property lines.

Those pink flowers look like a type of Penstemon to me, but it's hard to tell from this far back. I *think* most Penstemons only flower for several weeks in the spring, but I believe I've heard of ones that will flower longer. Anyone else have a guess what they are?

As good as I can tell without a closeup shot, the flowers in question do appear to be Penstemon 'Red Rocks'. It is commonly available through places that supply plants to landscapers.

Thanks for the ID help, I'll have to start looking...hopefully last night's snow doesn't last long, I'm waaay behind on my TO-DO list!

cyclewest, don't know if you're still around, but those pink flowers are Penstemon. I finally got a chance to talk to my landscaper. I guess they come in purple too? Maybe other colors also. I love them- just wish they bloomed all summer!

Thanks, Sharla. So how did your reception go? July, was it? I guess there's still some month left... Hopefully you aren't too stressed out!

Well, the wedding is over and what a relief! The yard wasn't perfect, but it looked ok. We had the swamp area by the tramp bermed up and re-mulched. I think it looks lots better, even though it's a subtle difference. Here's the before
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And here's how it looked for the wedding
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Very nice! It all looks great. I hope the wedding went well. I can imagine you are greatly relieved to have that behind you!