Tuchina- I'm not a professional designer, just a professional dreamer. With your situation--student, limited funds, existing trees, soil, and other constraints--a great deal depends on who you are and what brings you joy. For me, I love research, asking questions, gaining know-how, envisioning possibilities (even financially impossible possibilities). I love being outside in the garden as much as possible, so spring and fall clean up, bed prep, plant transplanting, as well as creating places I like to eat, sit, meditate, and read are important. Working to create these spaces is something that I find entertaining. And I don't mind very slow progress. I purposely set my annual garden goal very low: Is it better this year than last year? And, though it's been slow, I am getting there. I agree that creating a sort of master plan may help you move forward. But it's okay to plan to take the trees down in your master plan, even if you can't do this for a couple of years. That question, of course, may also depend on how long you will live in this house and whether completing your schooling will mean you will be trying to sell. If you plan to work in the same city / town where you are now in school and this will be your home for the next 10 years, then consider a master plan strongly geared toward what you would really love this place to be. On the front end, don't limit your dreaming perspective. It will, after all, potentially be your back yard for a good chunk of your existence. If your time frame is considerably les, then moderate the master plan toward the objective of good stewardship of the yard and home and doing what you decide will give you best value when you need to sell. Once that's out of the way I second Bahia's advice about books, gardens in the neighborhood, gardens and parks in your city, botanical gardens. Go on a picture safari this spring. Take garden tours in your town or region. Lots of notes. Keep a garden journal, especially describing vignettes (little created scenes and settings in a landscape) that, perhaps for some as yet unknown reason, seem to stop your heart. Do the same with garden pictures in magazines and seed catalogs. If you can cut out the pictures, then put them in the garden journal. Later on, you will have to deal with the fact that some of these photos are touched up like runway models, but, nevertheless, if the picture seems to speak to your heart, it's worth beginning to ask yourself "Why?" Now, much of what you capture this way will have nothing to do with your current backyard. I told you I was a professional dreamer! But it is still very much worth learning what it is that you love in the garden, don't you think? Apparently, you found something wonderful about having a fig tree, right? My mom planted one a few years ago and it's a lovely thing ... Back to planning process. You also need to ask yourself a lot of questions about what you want to be able to do in your backyard. You've mentioned that there is no patio -- Would you like one? Do you want a place to drink a cup of coffee in the morning? A table and chairs for friends to sit outside and talk deep thoughts past midnight? A place to groom the pups? You've mentioned a back fence that the neighbor put up but does not maintain. You've put up a second fence ... I think to keep the pups in the yard. Not sure. So this brings up some things you need or want: Enclosure adequate to keep dogs in the yard, and A way to mitigate the ugliness of the neighbor's fence. Now, remember, at this stage you're still just playing. So you can write anything in the whole wide world down as a "I'd love to have ...". Nobody needs to see your list. do you want a fountain or water feature? Do you really wish you had adequate sun for a vegie or herb garden? Do you want to teach your pups dog agility? (Don't laugh! That's what's in my brother's back yard. All these wonderful fun things for his dogs.) Or, maybe you'd just like a nice patio area, maybe some containers of flowers spilling over, and a real lawn dotted with much smaller (younger) ornamental trees and shrubs? Information about what you want and what you need comes first. And I'd even say it comes before you limit the discussion with budget. Trust me, mine is miniscule, but I am working to save up for a major change. I know what I want because I worked on my "master plan". I'm hoping something in this is helpful. If it were me, I'd try to sketch out your main design, I would (and did) get a consultation with a designer (oh, meant to ask, are there any landscape design schools around? You can sometimes get help through a student looking for experience), and then I'd focus on one small area. For me, I'd be planning to nix the trees, so I'd check out the cost. Then that might be all that I could do this year. Or I'd get myself a patio so I could sit sipping a glass of wine, contemplating the possibilities ...

Okay, so I'm easily convinced on not going with the landscape fabric. I was looking into it and realized that the place I bought it from had it on clearance for about $2 for a 3' by 50' roll, instead of $20. I had been saving cardboard to use as a barrier that would eventually compost instead of the fabric, so I'll just go that route instead of the landscape fabric. Could I use landscape fabric temporarily in the vegetable garden? Classes that I have attended emphasized plastics, but I was just wondering what I could do with the fabric now. As far as border plant ideas... I had just started from seed some zinnia, assylum, sweet william, and Lupine. All but the Lupine have sprouted. I also have some day lillies that I can divide and transplant to put into the back instead of the front. There's another low growing shrub with white and green variegated leaves that I can take cuttings from on a side yard. I started a forsythia bush from a branch that had started to take root, but those can get rather large. I also have some roses that I am going to experiment with taking cuttings, that's probably a longer term project. There's also some Salvia next to the house that I would rather move out to the border. Last year I planted some dahlia in the border, but I apparently didn't give it enough winter protection, or it's just not ready to wake up yet. I'm also interested in getting some Iris started. Another alternative would be to transplant the runners from our patch of everbearing strawberries. Can't ever get enough berries! I had entertained the idea of creating a "room" at the southwest corner. Instead of putting the grapes on a trellis, I would train it to a small arbor with raspberries in a raised bed on either side. Then we could put the vegetable garden in that corner a little more hidden from view, or make that more of a cutting flower garden. Another idea would be to put a bench in a shaded area on that side of the yard, maybe inside the arbor, so there is still a view of the children's play area, but my wife could oversee while reading and not be in the middle of the action. I think I need to print a copy of the picture of the lot so I can commit more ideas to paper, and locations of these flowers that I mention, to further develop this master plan. One thing I realized last year was how effective using cardboard was to prevent some things from coming up, and how dead the soil I was using was since it was coming from deeper in the ground. Building up the fertility of the soil will definitely need to be part of the plan. As far as priorities, I would like to move the raspberries sooner than later, and establish the border around the peach and cherry trees. The trampoline going in-ground got an early start, but the support structure to prevent erosion is bigger than I think I realize right now. I've seen people use brick, steel sheeting, and lumber, but I've yet to determine my own approach.

Here are a few photos. In all three, one can clearly see the shape of the edge of the lawn, but not what creates it. I like this look, and it can be created with a subtly colored/camouflaged stone or brick edge. (If the photos embedded in this thread are too small, follow the link below each to get to the photo set for each and you can click on the photo there to see a larger version.) The all look to be relatively newly created and so plants will get larger and fill in over time. You don't want to overplant and create a dense thicket. Having sight lines into the woods or a path to a shady seating area under the trees would be nice. In this first one, I am not particularly fond of the abrupt in/out edges between the grass and wood, but it does have a variety of plantings of different heights, some of which are just outside the tree line and some within the trees. There are small flowering trees, some medium flowering shrubs, and low-growing groundcovers between. http://www.houzz.com/projects/29439/grand-rapids-residence In this second one, I would add plantings outside of the tree line, a combination of trees, shrubs and evergreen groundcover as I think that the transition from grass to established woods is too abrupt, but again here there is a clean edge, a combination of flowering shrubs and smaller trees set into the understory. This one, like the first photo) is taken in very early spring before the leaves fully fill out, so it is likely to look fuller/denser when there are more mature leaves. http://www.houzz.com/projects/337408/woodland-gardens In this third photo, ignore the patio in foreground and look across at the far side of the lawn. Another clear edge and a combination of ornamental small trees and shrubs that transition to denser native woods beyond. The birches were probably already there, and they cleared around them and then added the shrubs. I prefer groundcovers to the bare mulch look - more attractive and easier maintenance. http://www.houzz.com/projects/1749687/perched-lake-and-mountain-views

Hello! I'm trying to design my backyard garden to replace turfgrass. I have some pre-existing structures, trees and I believe that the garden has a skeleton of a formal garden. I'm interested in building on the top of what is already present. Most of my yard is in full sun. There are trees on surrounding properties but this space gets almost a full day of sun. My SS zone is 16, in Northern Cali, (SF Bay Area). What I am looking for are suggestions of plants. I have contemplated some, and I am looking for some others. I am leaning towards making this a modern garden with grasses, groundcovers etc. I'm not looking for plants with flowers, unless they are self-cleaning :-), and my attempt is to create this garden with primarily foliage plants with varying shapes/colors/visual textures with foliage. (Another constraint is that I do not want to use succulents). I am looking for suggestions for: 1. Sculptural, statement making plant/shrub that would thrive in full sun. I'm thinking something with a vase or a round shape like round boxwood, Blackcurrent Sage, etc. which will be ~2-3 ft tall. There will be a total 4 of these around a central fountain+paved square area. (#6 in the drawing below). 2. a groundcover with an even appearance (i.e not wavy) -- that would not need mowing (#5 in the drawing below. This pretty much goes all over the area except for the plants). 3. short shrubs that can be planted in a row along the border. These can be fountain grasses, non-grassy full-looking shrubs, etc. (#3,9,10,11). TIA!!! (Here's the plan): #1 is paved area, with fountain in the center.