Of course one does also need to consider the spatial functions when designing a garden, but it is not necessarily wrong to design around what plants you want as well. I was just reading the notes of a garden lecture that the famous Brazilian landscape architect, Roberto Burle Marx, gave when he was doing a lecture tour back in 1982 both here in California and England, and he stated that he ALWAYS starts any new design by thinking about the plants he wants to use, FIRST! If that is good enough for one of the most revered modern designers in the world, it also works for me. It does need to be said that this requires some cautions; it helps if one is wanting to use plants that can actually work in your climate, and that will be able to combine together well. These intended plants will need to be vetted against your existing conditions, your intended level of maintenance, amount of water and fertilizing you intend to provide and/or make sense in your situation. As you can see, there is a lot more to designing around plants first than simply coming up with a list that pleases you. Right off the bat, it is more apparent that you will probably have some strong winds in your location, and using things like a Japanese Maple which tends to get burnt leaf edges in hot and/or drying winds would probably only work well up against the house where it is more protected. The distant views looking out over the right side neighbor's fence might also be something you want to keep? If so, planting something that only gets about 5 feet taller than the fence, and kept closer in to the midpoint of the fence would help preserve a view of the distant mountains while still blocking the sight line of the building visible in the distance, but then again, maybe keeping distant views of the surrounding mountains is not important to you from the ground level, but more privacy is. You look to have good opportunities to plant climbing roses against the fences/walls at the north side in particular, where they would get the most sun. Or it could also be an opportunity for other flowering vines that are more evergreen in your intended color range, there are pink/white tinged Bougainvilleas such as 'Blushing Thai' or pink vines such as Pandorea jasminoides 'Rosea', or a deep purple winter blooming vine such as Hardenbergia violacea. Other even longer blooming vines that are evergreen might include a Passiflora 'Lavender Lady', or the semi-shrubby scandent Plumbago auriculata 'Royal Cape/Imperial Blue', which can be pruned to stay flat against a wall. I also quite like the densely foliaged Grewia occidentalis, Lavender Star Flower shrub, especially when grown flat against a wall, and blooms nearly year round. Climbing roses that are quite easy in southern California would include Altissimo(deep single red), Iceberg(white), Mermaid(yellow) and the already mentioned Joseph's Coat(a vivid red-orange), but there are many more, and it mostly depends on whether you want one massive bloom spike or repeat blooms throughout the year. Combining Mediterranean flowering shrubs such as the various Rosemaries(upright or spreading), along with various Lavenders, perhaps some similar lower growing plants like Teucriums, Convolvulus mauritanicus, Armeria, etc could be a good choice for a lower water using part of the garden with more sun. Other shrubs that might work well in this mix could include fragrant foliage of Coleonema pulchrum 'Sunset Gold', Erysimmon 'Bowles Mauve', Helleborus argutifolius. If you like the idea of evergreen iris as an accent, I would highly recommend the less commonly seen iris relative from Brazil, called the Walking Iris, Neomarica caerulea, which blooms for about 6 weeks in mid summer with brilliantly blue flowers on top of 4 to 5 foot tall stems, and is a very dramatic accent foliage plant even when not in bloom. Other Iris members that have great foliage as well as blooms might include Iris pallida 'Argentea Variegata', along with other classic Bearded Iris cultivars. It might look very nice nestled within a lower mass of silvery foliage of a Lavender angustifolia 'Hidcote', or one of the Helichrysum petiolare 'Limelight'. Some grassy leaved plants in groupings, such as Leymus condensatus 'Canyon Prince'(tall and pale blue),or dwarfer Dianella revoluta 'Baby Bliss' or the deep greens of Zephranthes candida can also liven up a garden. Other taller growing sculptural grassy plants might include some of the Restios such as Chondropetalum tectorum or Elegia canpensis, both of which give wonderful movement in the wind and look good combined with flowering herbaceous things. If you wanted a few very fast growing shrubs that can also act as small trees in the garden, with long bloom seasons, I might suggest Psoralea pinnata or Lavatera thuringeaca 'Barnsley'. Some of the larger growing, virtually everblooming Salvia species such as Salvia leucantha 'Santa Barbara', S. 'Waverly', S. 'Indigo Spires' or S. involucrata are all very long blooming in the garden. As you can see, there are a million ways you can go with planting choices in your garden, these are just a few things that come to mind if you want things that grow well/easily in your area, have a long season of interest, and might combine to give a blues/purples/pinks range of colors over a long season, with accents of soft blue and silvery foliage. If you like the idea of interesting color/texture ground covers that continue the lower water use theme, you might also look into the wonderful silvery low growing Dichondra argentea, Dymondia margaratae, or Ophiopogon japonicus. One of the low growing Iceplants, such as the silvery foliaged Oscularia deltoides, or the Hens and Chicks, Echeveria elegans or Echeveria imbricata also make good massed ground cover plantings.

CreatedToCook: How has your planning changed with Steve's input (or others')? Last weekend I actually planted a seven citrus espalier in my front yard along the property boundary wall, where the ground slopes down to the street - sound familiar? It's a LOT like yours. Mine slopes down steeper than yours. But it may help you to know how I got over a couple of bumps. Here's what was holding me up... I had been dreaming for about a year of making it a Belgian Fence or Losange shape -- diamonds. Every time I drew it out on paper it didn't work, because I was focusing too much on planting each tree equally distant from it's neighbor, and treating each tree equally in the first cut. I would have had big blank spots and uneven diamonds if I'd done that. Finally I got out some chalk, and I drew the shape using the bricks as my guide: I counted the same rise over the same run over and over and marked each spot with a dot, and then connected the dots. It really helped that I made the ones leaning left pink and the ones leaning right blue (or vice versa.) Immediately I saw where I should plant the trees to fill in all of the lines. They were not all equally planted from one another! And although I did not build a raised bed, I needed to terrace the earth in the end, because I discovered my soil was pure clay. Each hole I dug was basically just a pot, waiting for excess water and root rot. So I ended up digging a 2 foot wide trench down the hill and mixing in 75% compost, then terracing so that each root ball was slightly above the slope. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. Oh... one other thing, I was reading that these are the ideal citrus for espalier and hedge, respectively, but I think you really can try any kind of citrus as long as you are ok with them growing at different rates. (See list below.) It's kinda like how SteveInLosOsos had that lemon that filled out so beautifully and swiftly. The others just take a little longer. Tom Spellman of DWN is very encouraging about trying out most citrus in various shapes. I'd like to know more about which fruit varieties favor which shapes, as Steve was talking about earlier. (Btw Spice Zee Nectaplum is supposedly VERY much like a Nectarine, and you should probably plan to treat it that way.) If peaches prefer fans, and plums prefer horizontal, what do nectarines prefer? Good Citrus for Espelier: Meiwa Kumquat Nagami Kumquat Eureka Lemon Meyer Improved Lemon Chandler Pummelo DANCY Tangerine Satsuma Tangerine Good Citrus for Hedge: Calmondine - "nearly thornless" Verigated Calmondine - "nearly thornless" Meyer Improved Lemon - "nearly thornless" Pink Lemonade/Veriegated Eureka (green veriegated fruit! and leaves)--has thorns! Pomona Sweet Lemon - has thorns! Sweet Lime doesn't do well in SoCal - needs wet. I may need to plant a thorny hedge to keep people from stealing the fruit from my front yard!

Concrete topping over wood joists is quite normal in Canada in low-rise buildings. We see this quite frequently. The fix: everything vs. nothing. As you have guessed, the issue is UNDERNEATH the concrete. And to get at THAT layer your upstairs neighbors have to remove everything, jack out the concrete and then "fix" whatever needs fixing (sigh....guess how many times that's going to happen? Zero). And because the problem is your problem (it bothers you, not them) you will have to spend all the time/money investigating this issue. It is *possible you can rip down your ceiling (yep....throughout the ENTIRE condo) and investigate the problem from BELOW. I'm going to guess this isn't going to happen either (cost is going to be WELL over $15-$20/sf to remove, repair and replace ceiling). The fix that you could attempt without having to investigate the actual source would be to have a drop down acoustic ceiling installed with proper isolation channels and acoustic drywall/ceiling tiles. It is possible to do this for about $10/sf. If you have UNTEXTURED ceilings, it is *possible you can use GreenGlue+Acoustic drywall to create an acoustic barrier that will offer another 36 dB of insulation (5/8" acoustic drywall = 18 dB of insulation; GreenGlue sandwiched between the old ceiling and the acoustic drywall = 18 dB of insulation). This can be done for about $7/sf and will not lose ceiling height. My personal favourite is a "white noise" machine for the bedroom. The simplest option = fan. $15 from Home Depot. And no I am not being facetious. I am offer a cheap, simple (and often effective) solution to a sleep problem. White noise machines will do a tremendous amount for your sleep. Once you get a few months of decent sleep (yes...it takes that long to pay off sleep debt), you will begin to feel better about where you are. And eventually, if everything goes well, you will stop hearing the noises from above. All for $15. This would be my first stop. You can always add more materials to your ceiling and remove money from your bank account if the $15 fan doesn't work.

My apologies all (carol23, JXBrown, Colwynn, floral_uk, chloebud)! Did not have phone with me when I saw this plant. I will get a shot of the shrub, was not sure if I would get back to that area. Thanks everyone for input, I will do my part with more details. I am leaning toward it being Pavonia praemorsa @gyr_falcon. I will upload a photo of entire plant within the next hour.