Realistically, I would start by cleaning up what you have. This is actually a good time of year to move rocks and brick and anything else the PO dumped back there. I'd move the things like rocks and bricks to an area for stockpiling for now (perhaps behind the shed) and get rid of any trash or woody debris. You may well find uses for the rocks and brick such as creating steps or walls or non-flammable surfaces around a fire pit, so you don't want to get rid of them for now. If you don't have a heavy duty lawn tractor with a dump cart, get one to help you move things around the property and mowing. Learn to ID poison ivy regardless of time of year, with leaves and without. Start removing it by pulling it wearing protective clothing OR plan on spraying glysophate (generic Roundup without all the other herbicides) after it leafs out in spring and repeating every 4 weeks or so with any leaves that reappear. You can still get PI when there aren't leaves, so treat winter PI with the same caution needed for the growing season. Don't burn it - you can inhale the oil from smoke and end up hospitalized - but instead put in plastic bags for disposal. If you are particularly sensitive, you can get it from your pets' fur or handling clothing with urushiol (the rash-causing oil in PI), so keep your pets out of it and wash contaminated clothing multiple times in a separate load from other clothing. If you have deer, mice, voles, squirrels, etc. you will have ticks. You can reduce the number by getting rid of the brushy stuff under the trees, but you won't get rid of them, even with a gravel barrier, because the mammals cross the barrier, bringing ticks. Get in the habit of checking yourself, your dogs, and your kids for ticks every time you come inside (just a quick check) and every night a very careful check at bath or bed time including hair, armpits, ears, and groin. Talk to your vet about tick repellents for your dogs and spray your kids' clothing (not them) with a repellent containing DEET. I can pick up a tick between the house and the veggie garden which is all lawn, and during the spring can find 5-10 ticks a day, but haven't ever (15+ years in our current location) had one embed because I am extremely conscientious about tick checks if I have been outside at all. It takes more than 12 hours for ticks to embed, so if you are checking every night, it won't be an issue. Next spring mark wet areas, perhaps with stakes so you know exactly where you have standing water, where it stays damp for more than a few days, and where you have running water. IME trying to change drainage patterns without heavy equipment is usually unsuccessful (and potentially illegal in a natural wetland) but you may be able to slightly modify them so you don't have standing water and mosquitoes breeding. You can plan to plant long-damp areas with plants that are tolerant of moisture. This winter collect information and photos of rain gardens (particularly for shade), visit web and local resources that have information on wetland plants, and find a bunch of photos of dry creek beds and read up on how to create them so they look tolerably realistic. Based on many years as a teacher at a school with natural drainages through the school property, kids love playing with shallow running water- damming it, floating stick or leaf boats, etc., so don't put your drainage under ground. It usually is more successful anyhow to do a drainage swale or dry stream bed than trying to do buried pipes involves a lot more knowledge since underground the water needs a consistent slope and somewhere lower to go to, and pipes need sizing for your largest storms. Also, burying pipes in that area will be difficult due to roots, rocks, and the difficulty of getting a machine in there. Next year after you have drainage patterns established and have moved out rocks and debris, you can do some leveling, adding soil where needed to fill holes that aren't part of your drainage pattern. If you want to keep healthy trees, don't put much soil over large areas of tree roots, however. Then spend the next year IDing what you have (photos on the Name that Plant forum are a great idea) and deciding what you want to keep such as good climbing trees, plants with good fall color or nest sites or whatever, and finding someone with a good reputation for thinning woodlands and the proper insurance. Only after next growing season will you have enough information to really get to work on getting the area thinned out and starting to replant. You should know that despite the inspiration photo you posted of the neighbor's yard, you probably won't get that result. Most grass doesn't grow well in shade, and you said you wanted to keep more trees. Also you have water issues unlike what appears to be drier in the yard pictured. You may do better to have islands of plantings with mulch over the other areas, though you can try growing grass and then changing over if that doesn't work. Good luck - it looks like this project will keep you busy for quite a while!

Nothing TO do other than turning things over to the Dept of Patience. One important reminder is to be extremely careful not to over-water. Use a wood dowel as a 'tell'. The wooden stick (bottom row of tools and toward the right) is something I use as a root pic, but it's almost exactly what you would use as a 'tell', only difference being your tell would be 24" long and sharpened at both ends. Use a 48" x 1/4 or5/16" birch dowel rod from a hardware or home improvement store. Cut it in half and sharpen all 4 ends in a pencil sharpener. Push the dowel deep into the pot (as in all the way to the bottom), then remove it. If it comes out moist or stained dark by the soil, withhold water. You can also use a bamboo skewer in a pinch, but the dowel is better. If the plant is going to live, you should see signs of back-budding inside of 2-3 weeks, but it might take longer. I've worked with temperate plants I thought were dead go a full summer with no signs of life, only to wake up the next spring and grow like nothing was wrong. Some of the tools I use for repotting ^^^. Al

We have done this similiar situation in Maine. The climates are not that dissimliar. We have a place 4 hours from where we live fulltime and have planted many trees and shrubs. The key here is to plant in the earliest of spring that you can. This will allow the plants to experience the shock of coming out of their pot or burlap with cooler and hopefully some damper weather that spring can bring. If you see a major drought coming, you would need to get there with some water and assist the plants through the dry weather. When you plant, add a good deal of peat to the mix. This will assist in moisture retention and be very helpful. The service berries will do very well and like dampness. You really cannot kill a chokecherry but they are not a frontline specimen plant. Ninebark like full sun and are very hardy. Wild roses will also need full sun to bloom properly. I would skip the ashes for the reasons mentioned above. River birch love damp soil and can grow very quickly. The maple trees will thrive here and grow large. They will sart off slowly and grow much more quickly after a couple of years. White pine are very fragile trees when larger and tend to break branches with when snow and rain come together as many storms do. They cannot take the weight and snap. They can also grow extremely large. Willow trees grow very quicky and love damp soil as well. You can plant all of these trees in the spring, and in your situation, plant them in the early spring so they can adapt before the really hot weather of summer. I cannot stress this enough in your situation. All of these plants will need some water should you get 2-3 weeks of drought in the summer. They will all be new and will not be able to survive if the drying gets too severe. Also, you can monitor the weather in your area to see how much rain your property is getting. With a little luck, you will get some rain and augment with some watering once in a while. These are tough plants that you have selected and will survive. Also, the first year will be the most difficult. After that, they will begin to thrive on your land. Goodluck.

Have your ever divided any muhly's? I'm wondering about the 2 undaunted Muhly's I moved, they looked punk all season like big grasses aways do when you move a mature clump. I'm wondering if I should dig them out and divide them to make smaller plants like those you have up there? Mine originally filled out fairly quickly. I planted them in fall and by the next year they made nice sized blooming plants, then the next year they were 3ft wide which was bigger than HCG had indicated. By the way, they changed the name, they were called 'Autumn Glow' back before HCG closed their local store and quit selling as many natives. Maybe they changed it since they glow in summer, not autumn? I wish they'd go back to selling those hard to find natives like they used to carry. The ones you bought look like 2 year old plants judging by the old growth that was trimmed back at the base or maybe they are divisions from a large plant?