I'd take a bit different approach and redo the entire backyard, getting rid of the raised planters which look very arbitrary in their design and placement and excuse me for saying so, but very amateurish as well. Heavy clay soils are very common in the PNW and relatively easy to fix or at least work with. Get rid of the sand/gravel, get rid of the raised beds and import some good compost to work into the soil. Make a few easy mounds along the perimeter - longish, irregularly shaped berms, maybe 12" in height. Slope gently back to ground level at the fenceline. This will give you some additional height for any screening plantings (you can easily move and relocate the few existing plants), plus it will work to improve drainage or at least provide a fast draining planting base. I'd disagree about the Viburnum tinus, also. That back garden is pretty restricted and with the fence, should provide more than adequate protection from winds for Laurustinus, provided you are truly a zone 8 (specific location?). I'd hesitate to add any trees in such a tight situation, but some very columnar evergreens could work (i.e. Chamaecyparis nootkatensis 'Green Arrow', 'Van den Akker' or 'Strictly Weeping'). Bamboo could work also but IMO tends to provide much more of a mass than such a small space warrants. Add back the paver pathway if you like and fill in with lower plantings of your choice and groundcovers. btw, your willow "tree" is just a shrub form of Japanese willow grafted onto a standard......it will never get much taller than it is now except for some expansion of the canopy.

16 degrees in this yard. Lots of damage. Ice was too heavy. Eucs are freezer fried. Praying many plants come back from trunk or roots when it warms up. Had some other zonally challenged plants that are now dark brown and withering. Every night lately has gone below freezing. Always ice in bird baths. Heavy frost every morning. Cold out in daytime. Plants don't like this after the arctic blast. Evergreens are browner. Just an icky time of year. Going to be pruning a lot today, all the willows. Have to get a bucket truck service to take the snapped shredded branches off the top of the giant curly willow. The rest will be done today with ladders and pole pruners and hand pruners. Times like this I'm glad I overplanted because I've lost so many trees. Have 3 Oregon myrtles, now 3 years in ground but still small, that I'll be transplanting from the back south fence area, now too shady, to spots where other trees croaked.

Another potential deer strategy is stringing monofilament ("fishing") line between your bamboo stakes. This was suggested to me - the claim is that the deer don't like being touched by something they can't see. I did this around a rugosa hedge planted in a high-exposure area and thought it worked really well. But I now believe that "our" deer just don't like rugosas. Oh well - it might still be worth a try. As bboy says - watering and weeding. Last weekend was dedicated to the fight to reclaim large portions of the yard from blackberries and other nasty berry vines, nettles, baby alders and maples. I think the berry vines that creep along the ground are actually worse than the big octopus canes. After two years of this I am making visible progress. Meanwhile the majority of the yard around the house is still a construction zone. Dirt work is supposed to be accomplished in the next couple of weeks. I can't wait! Roses - Teasing Georgia, Coquette des Blanches, Souvenier de la Malmaison and Rose-Marie are on standby waiting for their new homes. A couple of Madame Alfred Carriere's are waiting for their trellis/privacy screen to be built. And there's still a few dug up before construction began waiting to go back into the ground.

purpleinopp, thx for your response. I have always used the intermittent mist propagation technique using coarse sand as my medium. Sand is cheap and the bed and timer takes care of babysitting the cuttings for me. I root large quantities of plants, many, many different kinds and then transfer to pots of soil once they establish a nice root mass. I do this for many reasons: for fun, to "free-scape" parts of my yard, to have plenty of plants to share at plant swaps and hopefully at some point to start selling some at farmers markets, plant yard sales, etc.... I originally started with a nursery bed to put rooted cuttings in but found it to be easier, at least for my needs, to put them directly into pots instead, especially if the end goal is to either give many of them away or sell them. Hardest part is keeping up with summer watering needs since they can dry out quickly. The potting mix I make was based on many suggestions, posts, blogs and websites from other propagators and growers and everything else seems to transfer well to it except for the viburnum. I just read someone else who propagates viburnum uses a commercial potting soil mixed 1/2 with sand. I may try rooting them directly in that and then just up-potting as lyndapaz suggested instead of rooting in the propagation sand box. I may also attempt air and/or ground layering with my large mother plant. As for timing, I prefer to work with soft wood to semi-hardwood cuttings in mid-late spring/early summer on most things and that's typically what I've been rooting from the viburnum. I am less familiar with hardwood cuttings and never tried them much, mostly because of the patience needed for them to root. Perhaps I should give those a shot as well on this one. Danielle