Drainage is a tricky thing, especially when the backyard is draining towards your house. You'll want to be very careful that you don't do something which in 'wet' years will cause problems for your foundation. You say the right side is all concrete? But in your "from the bedroom" photo it looks as if theres grass and dirt past those iris leaves. IÂll assume if that is concrete, thereÂs only a thin covering of dirt and grass, so you could build a basic raised bed for planting. This will even things out, and allow some height so you can have a much prettier view outside your bedroom window, with complete privacy as new plants grow in. Using the link below to a collage I made, what would you think about looking out at this instead? Think moderate height, interesting foliage, partial shade shrubs. This doesnÂt look like a large area, which helps keeps costs down. Your costs would be mulch, some pressure-treated lumber, soil, and 3 to 6 shrubs from container, depending on the size of the bed. I donÂt know if youÂre East Cst zone 9 or West Cst zone 9. IÂm the latter, so what I used (all evergreen, BTW) was: Top left: Pink cestrum. This grows very fast, vase-shaped at maturity, flowers almost continuously, hummers love it. About 6-8 H at maturity, 4 across but takes pruning very well. Right side: Tibouchina heteromalla. This can be a tricky plant to find and grow, but once correctly sited itÂs stunning and grows fast. ItÂs a tropical understory plant, so canÂt take too much sun but is somewhat frost-tender. 5 T and at least 6 across at maturity. The leaves are an amazing fuzzy, silvery gray-green that stops people in their tracks. I have had more people ask me what this shrub is, than any other I have. Once a year it puts up tall spikes of brilliant purple flowers, simply gorgeous. Do not get T. urvilleana, which is more common but a much more scraggly, leggy shrub. (If this wouldnÂt work in your zone, something like a variegated rhododendron, or even an Aucuba japonica 'Mr. Goldstrike' or ÂGold Dust would add year-long interest and foliage contrast.) I added a couple of ferns just to fill in the space. But IÂd prefer to add something more interesting, such as Abutilon ÂSavitzi or even ÂThompsonii if thereÂs room. A dwarf camellia would work, but they grow very slowly. The jade plant thatÂs there seems to be leaning into the walkway. You might want to move it  they can get quite large across at maturity so they may outgrow that space theyÂre in. Fill in with smaller plants that youÂll see when youÂre outside  dwarf hydrangeas, fuchsias, liriope, or even shade annuals from a six-pak. The brunnera ÂJack Frost has been a great performer in my shady bed, and the baby-blue flower spikes are charming. The seating area with the fountain as shown, is just leveled with mulch as a temporary measure until you work out your fencing and terracing solutions. Anyway, HTH spur some ideas for you! Good luck, itÂs always very exciting to consider possibilities for new landscaping.

You won't know how many bumps you have until you rake away all the wood chips and mulch. The really good news is your soil has been covered in wood chips and mulch. It doesn't get much better than that. You probably don't have clay soil. Search for "Jar test" and do that with the photos at 1 minute, 1 hour, and 1 day. That will tell you that you have a sandy soil or loamy but there isn't much clay in Texas. There is clay-ish soil that has excess magnesium in it. That tends to make soil act like clay. There is a soil treatment made by Medina that, if you use too much, will give you that clay-ish soil. Pick a variety of St Augustine that works in shade and cold weather. Floratam is the really popular one but it is not the best performer in shade. I'm thinking Delmar is a good one but I'm not really that up to speed on the varieties. In general I know St Aug is the one to have in the shade. As a matter of fact I have Floratam in heavy shade and it's doing great, so I can't imagine how well the better shade varieties would do. When you pull the mulch and wood away, drag a piece of chain link fencing around and see if that doesn't do your leveling for you. It should be at least 4 feet wide and 6 would be better. Put some weight on it so it will scrape off the high points. That tool should do all your leveling for you by removing soil from the high points and dropping it into the low spots. If you need to fill low spots, my favorite material is sand. Whatever you do, do not rototill the soil. That will give you a bumpy lawn that continues to get bumpier for 3 years. You really do have ideal soil right now with the mulch on top. When you bring in St Aug, it only comes as sod. Roll the sod down with a water fillable roller. Be sure all the sod buts up against the pieces of sod. There should be NO gaps. Good installers know how to fit it in around any obstacle. Down here they use a machete to chop it in. With the really good installations, you can't tell they were just installed. There are no slow options for shade in the south. St Aug is about the only grass that will thrive. There is one other. It is called Shadow Turf. It is slow to establish but aggressive once it does. It is a variety of zoysia developed in Abernathy, TX along with Texas Tech. I've tried it and am not thrilled with it. It has all the drawbacks of zoysia. The big one that I consider to be a deal killer is that once it goes dormant, it remains dormant until the following spring. In 2011 I made the mistake of waiting for rain so it would come out of winter dormancy. It never came out of dormancy and remained brown all summer. Looks like new, now, but that was a long brown period. Also zoysia cannot fight back against bermuda like St Aug can. So that's the background for why to go with st Aug.

You could build it as Mel suggests, out of conduit, but instead of using the rebar to stake it into the ground, you could use those U-clamps they sell at the hardware store..just use several of them per "leg" and screw them directly to the bed frame. I haven't tried it, but in theory it should work--maybe not for melons or super heavy crops, but certainly for beans and moderately pruned tomatoes I would think.

Hi, I think most of the fuss over pressure treated (PT) lumber has to do with the old arsenic stuff (CCA). The arsenic treatment was discontinued years ago for everything except maybe dock pilings. All the standard size lumber that you can buy now will have no arsenic in it. The treatment uses ACQ http://home.howstuffworks.com/question278.htm ---cut from this link--- The most common chemical used to treat lumber used to be chromated copper arsenate, or CCA. In 2003, however, the Environmental Protection Agency restricted the use of CCA in residential settings due to health and environmental concerns about arsenic leaching out of the wood. The most widely used alternative to CCA is alkaline copper quat, or ACQ. Copper is toxic to various insects and fungi that might cause decay. ACQ binds to wood fibers very well and allows wood to last decades even when it is in contact with the ground. There is another common treatment used but I can't remember what it was called. I think it used boron or borate. When you go to buy the lumber check the label and see what it was treated with. When I researched ACQ I found it is not suppose to be much of problem. If you are concerned run some google searches and see what you can find. Check out the link below for some nice design and landscape ideas. Who said raised beds have to be a boring box shape ;-) With just a little more work very interesting designs can be built (or bought from the link below. For growing tomatoes in a backyard garden were looks do not matter my favorite size is 6 foot x 2 foot rectangle. This size will plant 3 tomatoes if the Florida Weave is used and the support posts are dug outside of the bed on each end. If you want to make a front yard garden much more interesting shapes can be made. I will try to post some pictures. BTW - I used long 3 1/2 inch exterior (dry wall like screws) to hold the beds together. Install them using a drill and a small bit to make a pilot hole so the wood does not split. Do not use nails! Use a good screw gun to zip the bed together. It is well worth the effort to do this as the screws hold much better then the nails. Later, DC Here is a link that might be useful: Very nice cedar beds and design ideas