Hi! I read your post and it sounds somewhat like our situation (though no accusations about affairs or anything--just unsupervised children!) Anyway, since we moved to our home with a 2 year old, and another on the way, I insisted that if we did nothing else to our landscaping, we needed to install a fence! Since our neighborhood was somewhat established, and none of our bordering neighbors had fences, we opted for a split rail fence with a green mesh exterior--which is nearly invisible against the grass and landscaping. This design allowed us to "pen" our child(ren) in, keep the neighbors kids and dogs out, and it was subtle enough so as not to look like a "spite" fence. Once the fence was up, we then planted a mixed row of Rose of Sharon, smallish arborvitaes, along with roses, and barberries (the thorns are also helpful in the fight against would-be entruders!!! LOL!) The other nice thing about this kind of fence is that is CAN be temporary and removed after other plantings fill in, and it is one of the least expensive fencing designs, and both the mesh and individual timbers can easily be replaced if needed. We were able to fence in a relatively large 1/2 acre back yard for about $4000--it may sound a bit expensive, but it was WORTH EVERY PENNY!!! Just something to consider! Good luck!

Pam - along the side of the house there is a 5-8 foot wide flat walkway of old bark, and next to it, covering the slope are some junipers that have been well-trimmed through the years. Since they are doing their job of erosion control, and I really don't have to look at or maintain them short of an annual trim, I will leave the ones along the side of the house (and throw in a couple arborvitae or similar to screen off the dead wood on the end) but as soon as we get into the actual yard, the bushy scary eating the yard ones will come out. Thanks for your input karinl. I am becoming more keen on including conifers in the landscape. That has been something that I'm getting more and more used to. When I first moved it, I was so against anything non-broadleaf evergreen it was ridiculous. We were going to go with an alaskan weeping cedar (and still may) but at Flower World, we ran into something called a dwarf sequoia, which was SO interesting, and we will almost certainly be using it in the landscape. I've been unable to find anything online about them. It had a similar growth pattern in that it kind of looked Dr. Seuss-y, the branches hung almost straight down, but it was gorgeous. We have 5 HUGE fir trees, one on each corner of our yard, and they ALL belong to neighbors. The people across the street from us are hoping to open up their view a bit and have spoken about wanting to go in on taking down the one uphill of us, but the people that just bought that house are like the Seattle suburb wannabes of Jersey Shore so I do not expect that they will have any interest in spending any money on landscaping. I caught them thinning out a photinia that provided privacy screening between our back yards with a sawzall (.25" thick branches). The people downhill from us are renters and based on the state of various "wear items" around their house, like the fence, I have a feeling the landlord is uninterested in investing any money in the property that they don't have to. Cliffs: It's unlikely either of those huge fir trees are going anywhere. Thanks for the kind words on the back yard. I've spend the last 2.5 years trying to whip it into shape. We have put a huge deck between the 2 decks on either side, the raised veggie beds, defined garden beds around the decks and elsewhere have gone in, I've taken out about 1/2 of the lawn, we put in a fire pit and gravel "patio" in front of the other deck to address the ongoing lawn moss and crappiness issues, and torn out about 1000 sq feet of vinca minor and 3 overgrown rhododendrons. It has been quite a project, and I feel that I've gotten far enough with it that I'm ready to start tackling the front so it doesn't look like meth addicts live here. I'm not particularly tied to nandinas, and after spending $50 today on ONE dwarf variety for vignette #1, I have been seriously rethinking my position. I have a couple more plants to move from the back yard to the front tomorrow morning, but I will post photos tomorrow once I get everything "completed." It looks FANTASTIC.

"Although I wonder how you manage to create straight rows with a town behind dethatcher on a rider. I can't even mow in straight rows, I have to do the zamboni mowing method because of the layout of my property." Like what Morph said, the straight rows don't really matter that much. Once the grass comes in you can't tell what pattern it was planted. We had our house built 1.5 years ago. So I've been going all out to get it in prime shape. We had sod in most of our yard but the first summer (last year) crabgrass totally took over my front yard. We did not actually move in until the fall but closed in late spring so I was not there to take care of the yard. Just now does the front look as good as other areas. It took a year to clean up the crabgrass problem. Next year I'm going to start scaling back what I do b/c I now have what I call a solid base. My lawn looks perfect (to me) in every area. Now I know during the summer it might thin out a little in some areas or a dog may mess up a spot but the amount of seed I buy each year is going to be cut in half. Oh yeah, one other thing. My lawn is very healthy and during the droughts I usually only watered 2-3 times a week. My water bill (3 months) was usually under $200 while some of my neighbors were >$500. Read some of the threads about watering and training your roots to grow down deep into the soil. Frequent watering can create shallow roots. The dethatcher is a very helpful tool and I'm always shocked at how much crap it pulls up out of the yard. Although I think the aerator has done the most to make my yard thick and green. This is not recommended but I used my aerator in July b/c my lawn was burning/turning brown and no amount of water would help. I aerated and applied a summer fertilizer and watered it really good. Within a week my lawn and bounced back and looked great. A few of the neighbors asked me what I did so I did their yard and got the same results.

Hi, all! My wildlife habitat, mostly-native landscape and lawn have been going downhill as my health deteriorates. Our lawncare guys have done such stellar things as weedwhacking my raised herb bed, (lost a three-year-established oregano bed to that one!) etc., so I know better than to ask them to prune. I could use some help finding reputable companies to do the following: 1) A company to repair our sprinkler system (the lawn guys mow the heads down). 2) A company to perform bi-weekly or monthly maintenance on our native plant beds, keeping things trimmed & mulched & weeded as needed. 3) Someone to repair or replace my lawn (it's not been the same since Wilma, and the repeated loss of the sprinkler system has damaged it beyond what may be repaired). I'd appreciate any suggestions! The one company I hired to fix the sprinklers ended up making things worse, and most landscapers I've spoken to sneer at native plants. Thanks so much!