You stole my heart with all that wonderful subtropical looking foliage ! After getting your safety items in order then the fun can begin with the planning of the landscape and other features. The way the deck is laid out really emphasizes the fenced in box shape of your property. When laying out your new landscape , if it were me, I would start to layer in some graceful curving beds with a layered planting of perennials( foreground) shrubs( midground) and a few trees ( background and canopy ). An overall master plan would help you with phasing and budgeting. A master plan will give you the 'big picture' but it doesn't get down to the nitty gritty of construction detailing. It is sort of a story board that will help you prioritize your project as a whole. In your master plan the shape of the landscape is defined and perhaps even some specific varieties of plants are called out. The deck and any augmentations are drafted up too. All this helps with overall budgeting and staging/ installing the various elements. From May 30, 2012

JD: Those are wonderful big rocks! I wish I had some (so long as I don't have to move them myself). You've made a very good start with your perennial mounds. I'm looking forward to seeing the next stage. I like your cairns. Last winter we had to have our septic tank pumped out (sorry for the unpleasant image, but there's a good side). They had to dig into the edge of a flower bed to find one manhole and they disrupted a number of stones I had bordering the bed. The cleanup guy was ready to haul the stones across the street, but I asked him to just pile them up in place after he backfilled the holes. I figured I'd use the stones to mark the location of the manholes until I could landscape in the spring. I didn't hang around for the backfill, and when I went out after they'd left I discovered two cairns marking the manhole locations. Not at all what I expected, but I was delighted. Those cairns cheered me up for weeks but the squirrels kept knocking them over so I sadly relocated the stones. Claire

While Boron is an essential micro nutrient a little too much causes plants to die so spraying Borax mixtures to control Creeping Charlie has not been something knowledgeable people have advocated for about 25 years now. Creeping Charlie, "Glechoma hederacea", spreads through seeds, rhizomes (roots), and bits of plants and although the best method of control is pulling the seedlings most people don't se them until they are much bigger and more difficult to pull. This stuff can never be pulled too early. Although it has adapted to many soil conditions Creeping Charlie does most bestest in moist, shady soils with a lower pH then most of the desirable plants like, so a soil test can be of some help in control when the soil is corrected. Here is a link that might be useful: controlling creeping charlie

Thanks, day by day, for confirming the ID that some other people thought it was also! Much appreciation to all who looked at the photos.