Why are you making more work for yourself? Why do you need a terrace in the front of the house? Build a retaining wall on the end and plant with potentilla to give some color to a dark area then make a curved bed starting at the steps and going down the drive with low growing spreading junipers, plant bulbs in the fall and leave the spruce alone. Sometimes simplicity is the best answer to complexity.

Maybe you should pinch the branches on the short side. This will force them to bud out more. I pinch mine regularly, and they do exactly as told. I have no fear of pruning Olives! They want to grow! Is it lopsided because one side is shadier? Plants tend to lean towards the sun, but you knew that! We have two olives, but almost every ranch here does, so pollination is not an issue. Ours were started from cuttings I grabbed from trees fruiting at a golf course we played. I know the size of these babies, but no idea what kind they are. All I know is that they are huge, and really tasty brined with garlic/lemon/herbs. We recently dug up our two baby trees and moved them to our new property. On drip systems, and they show no shock! They are shallow rooted, so pretty easy to move. Because we cut the roots, we also pruned the tops seriously back. They were about 6' tall, and now they are 4', but they will grow. Rather than doing a "comb over," I'd try getting that shorter side to wake up and grow. Just my opinion! Suzi

Olives will have no problems with your temperatures. I think your bought a "liner" the way most tree seedlings are sold. Although the container was probable not more than 3 inches wide it was deep and ready to transplant the tree into the ground. I have an idea that you potted it up into a mix that did not drain well enough and the combination of wet roots and low light caused the leaf drop. Olives only need well drained soil and full sun to do well. They don't need a rich soil with lots of fertilizer. Al

I just redid our entire front yard (1600 sqft) in DG and awesome low water plants and succulents for $957 by doing the work myself. I got a lot of the plants from a succulent guy that sells at the Rose Bowl flea market (nice large unusual echeverias for $6, smaller for $1-3 including the bright ruffled ones as well as lots of other succulents and cacti,) and "death row" at Lowe's (the clearance racks- I cut them back and nursed them to health while doing the sod removal and killing the remaining grass.) We only spent a lot of the 3 large focal point plants ($129 for a large Hercules aloe, $40 for a large red pencil stick tree and $28 for a larger Madagascar palm with 10 pups in the pot- I cut off 8 and am rooting them to add later.) The other large expense was good landscape cloth and pins, about $250 of the total cost (must be water permeable to qualify for the rebate, no plastic.) The turf replacement rebate here in Riverside is $2 a sqft so the check I get back will cover 100% of what we spent. Definately check and see if you have a rebate program in your area- they have to inspect before you start so don't start ripping anything out until you talk to them! We went with DG not only for the look but because mulch is very ant/ bug friendly and because it breaks down so it is a continual expense- you have to add to it every year to keep it looking decent. The DG was $40 a yard. With your need for a play are you could keep the area on the side for a play area and do the main part of the yard with the $500. When you no longer need a play area you could do that area. This post was edited by VedaBeeps on Mon, Jan 19, 15 at 10:47