Thanks for directing us to the Stone forum. We hadn't found that one yet. I also posted this question to the landscape design forum, and there are some good responses, as well as a follow up picture of what we did this past weekend: http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/design/msg0417250119248.html. We did start the stones a bit below grade. We also canted them ever so slightly toward the soil side. This weekend, on the advice of our local, independent garden center, we covered the inside with surface bonding cement. It feels pretty solid, now.

Wow, much to think about. The pictures you sent looked a lot better than grass on the slop with a landscaped bed. This approach would really soften up my house much better. Low maintenance is a high priority for me. So I think trying to get away from shrubs is a good plan. I'm just not familiar with plantings at all. I'm still a bit hung up on figuring out what the height of the step down off the porch should be. Now that I understand your yellow/blue lines, it appears from your sketch the dirt line would be every bit of a 24" dropoff with ground cover around 18". This also looks similar to the photos you sent. I was worried this would be too much but assuming you agree with those dimensions, I'm going with it. The picture below gives a bigger picture. Note the patio section we've been discussing is on the right, it's way off to the side of the house (actually the carriage house/inlawsuite that was my grandmother's "retirement home" for 10 years until she passed away. (Don't be confused by the identical section in the middle labeled as Future: Phase 2, I was going to try out this concept on the side of the house with lower grade before attempting it in the middle section.) Here's an image looking out with the red circle on the left showing the area we're discussing. The panorama distorts the middle of the house making it appear as the center of the breeezeway. Because this is off to the side of the carriage house, it's really removed so I wasn't overly concerned about plantings, however, low maintenance is much better. Could you tell me what the purple and pink ground cover are. I'm not the most creative and would like to try to just copy what's in the photo if it works in 7b.

It depends on how large the garden bed is. One alternative would be to do an elevated garden bed (think of a table with a bed at the top). In this design, the bed can be at waist level like a kitchen table. This design is good but can't support deep roots as the bed can't be too deep. If you are building it from the ground, then you can have deep roots but will need a ton of soil. Make sure you know how much you need. I would use https://www.soilcalculator.com to enter in the dimensions so you know your needs. Also, moving dirt into garden beds can be back breaking work. Consider hiring someone in the neighborhood (perfect for a highschooler) if you have arthritis.

Thank you Seabornman for your advice. I did a search on " solar shading calculator" and as you said, there were several websites. I had done some searches before but did not know the correct terminology. So I found one that had a calculator for a window overhang. I was able to contact the individual who wrote the program as my requirements are close to this program. For a reasonable fee he will do the calculations or create a version of his window overhang program. It appears that I will receive illustrations which will show the floor shade for various times during the day for each of the 5 summer months (middle of each month). If everything goes well I will have the answer next week. Thanks again for pointing me in the right direction.