I am doing the same thing right now? WHere exactly are you? I am in san fernando valley..I starting with one lonely queen palm and some guava bushes and my vegie gardent. Got a pool too! I am having sush a hard time planning out the trees etc....my pool divides the yard...my husband wants tropical and I am a native plant person...i like salvias, drought tolerants etc.... So i am doing "sub tropic" I have a subtripical plant book and mounds of books on trees, i ahve been to every tree nursery in the vallye. Its soo hard planning because you cant move trees like roses etc..onece its there its there and i am racing against time....you really have to do it before june...before it gets too hot!! very overwhelming what trees did you finally decide on? I am going with hong kong orchid on left of pool and on right against back wall going with australian willows and fruit trees. Also we are facing 2 story homes going up on other side of our wall...darn it!! so we are adding lattice ontop of block wall for privacey... its all too much

right, right, well I see what you mean about the scale of the problem. You might consider imazapyr for something that extensive. Just be glad you weren't dealing with acres of thistles, then you'd really have had a problem I guess my issue was with saying it takes "excessive" amounts of herbicide. It takes whatever it takes: correctly applied, this species can easily be killed. I found a tree of heaven in the woods near my house that I believe had just started to bear fruits. I cut it down, killed the stump, and burned the seed stalks which were just about to release the seeds. Glad I caught it when I did or it would have spread like wildfire. Some idiot neighbor of mine has a tree in their yard, thank goodness it's a male. There was something oddly remarkable about burning the seeds but I can't remember what it was. Maybe that they burned hotter than I expected for still mostly green plant material.

Hmmm. I think this is a Sugar Gum Eucalyptus cladocalyx, native to several small, isolated areas in South Australia. Does this tree have a lot of oozing gum staining the ground dark brown around the base? If so this would also indicate it is a Sugar Gum. The expanse of the root zone is probably roughly proportionate to its height. In the Flinders Ranges Sugar Gum grows to about 35 metres but it's smaller on Eyre Peninsula. It's also smaller on the north coast of Kangaroo Island where it's probably affected by its greater exposure to salt & sea winds. Outside its natural range it can develop into quite a tall tree. Be wary of planting rows of this species because they cause wind speed to increase as the wind passes between the trees (known as Bernoulli's principle). This can result in soil erosion around the tree bases, particularly in places where there is poor quality & quantity of understorey. Where is this tree, Paul?

So I just came across this photo from EmilyClark's home. thought it could be an inspiration for yours given the same layout. ( I know your ceiling is taller, so you could go w/a nice vertical picture if you like. just showing other elements like window covering and furniture/and placement) from another angle, (the sofa faces the fireplace)