Wow, thanks to each of you for sharing your thoughts - I feel like a kid on Christmas seeing so many responses! Before I start addressing all comments, I want to note the "secret garden" I forgot to mention in my original post. Right now it's just a heavily shaded area in the back corner (SE) of the yard enclosed by major overgrowth accessed by a gate from inside the dog pen. I'm not sure how shaded it would be if we were to seriously get after the privet/junk hedge jungle, but I thought I would mention it in case any of you have brilliant ideas for it as I think it could be a really special little area. No grass, some purple flowering ground cover, a scraggly old tree with a thick L shaped branch (would be a great climber). Now on to business. I'll start by topic, & try to answer any questions. The privet hedge: Frankly, it scares me. I've been pretending it doesn't exist for the past 2.5 years but it's time to start facing it. Ideally, I would love to replace it but it's just not in the budget so I suppose we will try to cut it back and clean it up (per Yardvaark & Whitecap2's instructions - lower cuts, full-on weed war). As unsightly as it is, it does provide invaluable privacy and effectively blocks out the houses behind us. Yes, our nice neighbor to the east just had the stretch between us heavily cut back but the weed eradication remains our problem to tackle - yikes... Possible future addition: This is really just a dream at this point but I want to avoid extensive or large planting in the area in case my dream does one day come true. The new wing would ideally extend south & a bit east as shown in blue in the pic below. I've probably made it a little over sized but that should give you an idea. Afternoon shade: The carport wing of the house does cast shade starting at about 2:00 or so in the summer. It takes a while to extend much further than the bed but eventually about 1/3 of the lawn becomes shaded. Yardvaark, I like the a/c screen & tree placement suggestions. And thank your for explaining the major down to minor (tall to short) planning method. Such a basic concept but one I'd never thought about before, with this being my first from-scratch landscaping project. I will definitely return with a plan for you all to review before starting any work. This forum is such an incredible resource & I am so grateful to each of you for sharing your knowledge! Whitecap2, the small covered porch (8'x18') is up against the house & steps down to the exposed patio. I have marked it in green in the pic below. I had no idea hedges were passe ("so 60's"); I think they can be quite lovely when not grotesquely overgrown like ours! Catkim, I adore the idea of a courtyard - so very charming. Beds along the hedge also sound very nice. And that link to the children's garden - how adorable! This would be a great time to start something like that as my little girl is now 16 months. Mad_gallica, the dog run does eat up almost all of the existing shade but I'm afraid most of that shade is created by the junk growing in the privet hedge. If we were to clean up the hedge, I don't know how much shade would remain in that area. Regardless, the pen & dog house have to go. Bahia, I'm ordering my own copy of the Southern Living Garden Book today. Thank you so much for the suggestion. I'm shocked my green thumbed mother & grandmother had not mentioned this book to me! Unfortunately, the sewer line is the original clay pipe. Depending on the type of design we settle on, it may be something we need to address before any landscaping begins. Whitecap2, yes; lots of high maintenance, sun-drenched, thirsty grass. We purchased the house from the elderly widow of the original owner/builder who we have discovered made many odd decisions. But that's another story entirely. Bahia, the carport does provide late afternoon shade, perhaps to about 1/3 of the back yard. As mentioned above, the turf is high maintenance. We have recently been working on the weeds more aggressively but the past 2 summers it required mowing every 5-7 days & lots of supplemental watering. I love the idea of adding another shaded terrace further out in the yard. I will definitely give this more thought. Catkim, thank you so much for your comments on pergola placement. I have toyed with the idea of a pretty vine covered pergola in the past but never would have thought to place it further out to cast the properly desired shade. Thank you for keeping me from making a big mistake! Whitecap2, visually I would prefer a patio over a deck in our situation. But I agree, anything would be more usable & less maintenance than our wide open grass field! You totally nailed my sentiment toward our current backyard: "It just seems to me regrettable that so large a space should be usable for such a short duration." We want to get outside & play! Bahia, I wish we did have sufficient summer rainfall but Memphis tends to get hot & dry, irrigation systems being a must have for any well landscaped yard. Regarding our outdoor habits, they are definitely evolving as our child grows. A year ago I probably would not have sought a space for midday/afternoon play but now it is a real priority. As this is our first child, I'm not sure what to expect in terms of future needs but everything you mentioned ("play equipment set, lawn area for ball games or running around, a secret garden or play house? Sited to be easily viewable/supervised by parents from indoors, etc.") sound like great ideas. Any additional advice for planing with a child in mind would be wonderful! Whitecap2, you are again right on. The lawn has not been overly happy even with all the attention we give it. I think the spots in the pictures are probably a result of the professional monthly spraying we started at the end of 2011. Yardvaark, I'm not sure how much more patio space we would want. I think it would definitely be a budgetary decision. The current patio is yucky pebble concrete & I wouldn't even know how to go about expanding it. I certainly wouldn't want any more of the pebble stuff. Would the whole thing have to be ripped up or could some kind of stone be laid on top and extended further out? I hope I touched on everything. Again, thank you so much for all your help. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it! Possible future addition (blue) & current covered patio (green):

Man o man! What an assortment of responses! Thanks to all of you who have responded (even the sarcastic ones). I have to admit it was a lot easier to read the sympathetic responses than the sarcastic ones, but I did ask for it, remember, so I feel I should "take it". In the middle of it all, I really enjoyed reading about how folks grew up in neighborhoods, where kids ran around all day long. I was one of those too. Winning a 6-hour hula hoop contest (because that was how long the playground stayed open!!!) I was much skinnier then! Snow Cones and making pot holders and other stuff you tried to sell door to door. You could sell it too! Everyone knew who you were and would give you 50 cents or something for your "work". Roller skating down the middle of the street with skates that clung tightly to your shoes -- you used a skate key that hung around your neck on a string to tighten and release. So, your stories brought me to some really nice remembrances of my own. Thanks so much for that! Amazing how much you can enjoy memories once roused. That buried stuffed chicken tickled me to no end! Bad Dog! As to my problem with the neighbors. It hasn't gone away and in fact, is a little worse now because they've decided to stop mowing the lawn in front of their house closest to our property -- you would need to scythe it now it's so tall. However, maybe all of your stories and your support and your sarcasm, yes that too, has helped to make a decision. I've decided that you just can't have it all. I'm going to bite the bullet. I've had a long time of quiet and this is the new period of noise. At least in the winter, the windows are closed! It wouldn't kill me to try to be friendly and think of how nice it is that our neighborhood is diverse instead of how untidy the back yard is. (Although I cannot understand why they don't at least put their lawn mower away.) I guess I'm talking about a grin and bear it attitude. At least I'm not afraid of them..... (yet!) I felt so sorry for seeyouatmidnight when she relayed her tough situation. But she displayed a very good attitude, and she is positive. If she can have one, I can do it too. Everytime it gets noisy over there, I should go for a long walk. I could stand to lose a little weight!!!!! I think the idea of sharing my tomatoes is a good one. If you don't like home grown tomatoes you're simply not human. That might go a long way towards softening my heart towards my neighbors..... You gotta like who you give your precious tomatoes to! This web site is a truly amazing place. I feel like I can just about say anything here (within reason) and get some serious comments. The people who took the time to respond are all wonderful. Sheez, aren't we lucky to have this resource! It's funny but I think just airing this problem of mine and hearing all the possible solutions helped! It helped to hear that just about everyone has some sort of problem with their neighbor, or their's neighbor's dog, yadda yadda. I guess I don't feel as sorry for myself anymore. Thanks so much for pointing this out to me. I recognized lots of monikers of the responders and appreciate the sound wisdom that I got to experience. This does kinda feel like my home and you guys are all my neighbors. This is where I come to get my attitude adjusted. Kinda like happy hour without the two-for-one beverage specials. Thanks so much for writing and for trying to understand! Debra

Do you know what sort of soil you have? The type of soil you have, how well it drains (or doesn't drain, as the case may be) and your annual average rainfall (20"? 30"? 40"? more than that?" all are factors that would help us recommend what would grow well for you. As for plants that can be grown safely around dogs, that's gonna be a huge challenge. First, you'll need to start out with a list of what you want to plant, and then you'll have to Google and do your research and try to figure out if the plants you want are known to harm dogs if eaten or chewed. The ASPCA maintains lists of plants that are known to be dangerous to dogs, but it is not an all-inclusive list. It merely is a list of plants that have been reported to them as being dangerous. Still, it is a good starting point. I've always gardened with dogs, but for the safety of our dogs, they have an enclosed dog yard that is fenced off from the rest of the yard and nothing grows inside their dog yard that would be considered harmful to them. If we are out in the yard, I occasionally let them out of the dog yard to roam the larger yard, but only because I am out there with them and can keep an eye on them. Some dogs are diggers and will dig up anything and everything you plant. Other dogs could care less and never dig. Some dogs chew. Some dogs try to chew but what they end up doing is pulling up everything you planted so they then can chew on it. At times, when I planted stuff in our yard before we had built the fenced-in dog yard, I would put cages of woven wire fencing around newly planted shrubs and trees to prevent the dogs from digging them up. Did I think it looked really lovely? No, of course not. What it did, though, was allow new trees and shrubs to become firmly rooted into the ground before the dogs could dig them up. After the first year, I removed the cages and the dogs never dug up any of those plants. Our dogs were pretty big-time into digging in their younger years, particularly from the puppy stage until they were 4 or 5 years old. Now that they're older and calmer, they don't dig as much as they used to. We had one dog, Mrs. Jeeves, who made it her personal mission to rip into and scatter every bag of anything (peat moss, pine bark fines, cow manure, mushroom compost, soil-less planting mix, etc.) she could find but she didn't bother plants. So, if your dogs are older and more settled down, they might not bother your plants much at all. Be advised that if you use organic fertilizers like blood meal and bone meal, your dogs will smell them and will dig up everything in sight looking for the source of that smell. I noticed that a lot of the plants on your list flower at various stages in their lives. I think you might want to consider vitex agnus-castus which blooms in summer and has lovely blue flowers. It is very drought tolerant and will grow in almost any soil, as will crape myrtles. If you have well-drained sandy or sandy loam soil, I think that everything on your list would grow well for you, but I haven't compared the plants you listed to lists of plants known to harm dogs. Lavender needs really well drained soil, so keep that in mind if you have soil that has a lot of clay in it. I'll link the ASPCA dog problem plant list. When you click on the link and go to that page, you'll notice you can ask for a 'toxic' list or a 'non-toxic' list, or you can search for individual plants using their search feature. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: ASPCA Toxic and Non-toxic Plants For Dogs

Oh no!! You said the "T" word......topping. In the wrong hands this word can lead to permanently damaged landscape plants, especially trees. You could agressively trim, but why go to all that trouble? Just choose plants whose mature size will fit into your space and save your free time to enjoy your pool and landscape. As for vines, there are several to choose from. Forget wisteria here, but perhaps Lilac Vine (Hardenbergia violacea) would work. Lady Banks rose (thornless in white or yellow) grows fast as does Pink Trumpet Vine (Podranea ricasoliana). You don't want Bougainvillea with your pool or you'll be constantly fishing out the colorful leaves/flowers. Heres a link to Landscape Plants for the Arizona Desert which has over 200 low water use plants with photos and descriptions. You'll need to water your new plants correctly for the first few weeks so refer to page 14 of Landscape Watering by the Numbers. Page 9 shows how much water to apply based on the size of the plant. Most of the valley cities have free landscape classes offered by their water conservation offices. Of course folks on this forum always have great advice. Good luck!