Thank you for your inputs! It is really useful to get some new points of view. I thougt about pruning lower branches and filling in for privacy. These branches are thick, so I am afraid that it will be too harmful for the tree. My next door neighbour pruned several lower branches of her pine. Pine died over 1 year. I am not sure what was the reason: drastic pruning, infection or something else. On the other hand, these are too low and too long now. They cover the area of at least 20' in diameter each. And I can not use the shade everyone is talking about! This shade is too deep to plant anything under these trees. Probably, it is not clear from the pictures, but this space is completely wasted for me. These two trees consumes about one third of all available area in my backyard. Columnar trees like Hollies would be much more compact. Anyway, if I will go with pruning lower branches and interplanting something evergreen between these two trees, can you please recommend something that will tolerate dappled to full shade? I was thinking about Camellias, will they work? A couple of things: 1. 6' fences are not allowed here. 2. I do need privacy in winter time also. It is not about using the yard. The neighbours' houses are too close, they all are 2 story homes. All our living areas including bedrooms will be exposed. The good thing is that these houses are higher than ours, so we do not need very tall evergreens to screen them. 3. 2 out of 4 surrounded us yards are cluttered, full with dead and overgrown ugly plants. I would love to get this obscured also. 4. Sorry for my English! I try to do my best, but with long posts like this one... :-)

Edie...Funny story...last summer, Sean had some buddies over for a swim. His friends know where Sean's plant collection is--grouped together near the house by the pool. One of the guys decided to be a smart a--, and grabbed one of the smaller cacti in a pot and yelled to another guy in the pool, "let's play keep away from Sean...". Now mind you, these were all baseball players with pretty good arms... One of the other 'new' guys said "hey..throw it here" (he was in the pool-not knowing what kind of plant it was). Sean just stood there shaking his head and told them I don't think you want to do that...the kid threw the plant to the other kid, and he caught it mid-air about 30 feet away---along with a handful of thorns!!! OUCH!!!! I'll never forget the scream! Sean said "they'll never touch my plants again!!!" Yes, boys will be boys...

Planting a yoing tree in the boarding rock bed the hot summer sun would cook it the freezing winter would freeze the root system. Planting in rocks need least 3-4 foot from base of tree to bottom of canopy. Blooming fruitless trees request fertilizer if not they're a short life span. Today's tree care we can plant just about any type of tree in your yard long as the soil can be mended to host the tree. As arborist we can speed up tree growth to fill in landscaping or we can slow growth down to keep the tree in check from out growing the landscape. We can stop fruit production with yearly injections. when planting a tree it's always a good idea to talk with a local arborist in your area about the types of trees that will work best for your landscape they already know what works an what doesn't work with the soil in your area.

You are getting there :-)) You will have an entirely different perspective once you get the black pots elevated. And you can always add more color with flowering plants. What happened to the white/cream colored containers? You could mix them in with the black ones to make more of a statement. The pots in the middle photo (mostly blue tones) are still too lined up. btw, the groupings do not need to be equal in impact or quantity :-)