Oh my. What is a passionate rose lover like you doing in that glacial hell hole? Reading about your endeavors has exhausted me and I haven't even lifted a shovel. I admire your grit and determination, but would love to see you rewarded with thousands of blooms on your rose bushes for all your hard work. I bet they could use engineers in zones 7 to 10!

you could also try Bleeding Heart Clerodendrum. I know it has naturalized and without any trimming can get a bit boisterous, but it grows at a reasonable rate and flowers practically all year long. I have some at my home and brought it with me from a rental I used to live at. It's incredibly tolerant of varying light conditions, from full sun to semi shade. The flowers are gorgeous.

Virginia Creeper does stick to objects in the same manner as Ivy. It will grow straight up the side of your house, very quickly. AND although easy to remove, it leaves the little marks where it's suckers or feet attached to the house. I know they are native and birds LOVE their berries and where you are located, they may NOT be invasive. BUT here in SUNNY FLORIDA where they can grow year around, they grow for enormous distances horizontally and vertically. The birds devour the berries like candy and consequently they come up volunteer anywhere and everywhere, Apparently every seed that passes through the tummy of a bird is fertile and will grow wherever it falls. They are colorful and provide lots of food for the birds and I would rather have it growing in my yard than poison oak (whose berries are well liked by birds also, by the way) but surely there is some other vine that you would like better.

Thank you both for your feedback. We've gone back and forth on artificial vs natural grass. Many times. It's 150-200 sqft feet on a 18,000 square foot lot, so 1% of area. The vast majority of the portion of the lot that is landscaped is done so with succulents and cacti. Basically xeriscaped. The downside to artificial grass is that it is expensive and requires 4' gravel sub-base (when done properly) which is hard to remove if there is a change of heart. It also gets very hot to the touch, and odor control is nontrivial. That said, we may do it. OTOH, I certainly could establish a lawn over the next months prior to the commencement of Metropolitan's water usage restrictions. I called LADWP and they have no idea it is being implemented. I'm 95% sure we live in Met's jurisdiction but I'm still running that info down. Natural grass looks better, feels better but does require some care, and I'm concerned about shading on one of of the two areas. I've read good things about Citrablue which is a relatively new St. Augustine cultivar (rapid, horizontal growth for faster recovery), improved drought and disease resistance, and wear tolerant. It says 'exceptional shade tolerance' but after talking to two sod farms who sell both CitraBlue and Sunclipse each replied that Sunclipse does a bit better in the shade. I'm sure both do much better than Bermuda. At 1:30pm today, only 3/4 of the one parcel that gets shade was in full sun. The sun did not yet arc to get beyond the Juniper canopy. So while my research led me to CitraBlue, I'm unsure about this. If I wait until Fall, what size wood chips? Do you just cover the area like bark? It seems that it would not decompose into the soil? Thank you