I can't believe I wrote that post in 2012!!! I'm embarrassed to say that I wound up not planting anything on that structure back then because I could not make up my mind. That was when I first began visiting the forums, and I was really lacking confidence growing roses after a few failed attempts. I became an avid reader/lurker here and finally in the spring of 2017 I decided to use the knowledge I'd gained and plant a dedicated rose garden. It felt like a real leap of faith! After a year and a half of growing roses (they are flourishing now that I know hat I'm doing!) and getting an idea of what does well for me here, I decided I wanted a white rose on the lattice house, but I wanted something somewhat mannerly, so I chose White Eden. I have 2 regular Edens in my rose garden and they are really spectacular here. I would also like to add a smaller flowered white rose in the future to intermingle with the White Eden, and I'm thinking about the Hybrid Musk Prosperity. I planted it in another spot in my garden and I find it to be a truly charming rose, and it blooms almost continually. On the shadier sides of the lattice house, I planted two clematis from Brushwood called Omishiro. These are the first blooms...but the White Edens and the clematis are still really small as they were planted in late spring of this year. I don't have a picture from straight on, but here is a side view of the lattice house from this summer. The Edens have just made it up over the boxwoods now. They got a slow start because the irrigation wasn't working well for most of the summer. Now that it's fixed, I except a lot more growth next spring! I will definitely update once the climbers get going! Oh, and here's a pic from my new rose garden, taken in August...

Clay breakers are mostly garden gypsum; sometimes they are combined with compost. Gypsum improves friability and drainage in the heaviest clay without affecting the soil's natural ph. The reason is that heavy clay compacts and drys into a concrete like texture that repels all water, air and roots. Gypsum keeps the soil loose, but it is not used up by plants like compost, so it continues to keep the soil fluffy year after year. DO NOT EVER GET BUILDER'S GYPSUM, WHICH HAS CONCRETE IN IT!!!!!. You know there may be an easier way to deal with these areas, especially if there are structural issues involved (the importance of which Ken is right about, as usual). Since you would have to do some major soil amending to grow most plants anyway and you have slopes and paths issues that have to be dealt with. Why not just plan these areas around some really major containers. By staggering the heights of the containers, you could create the same feeling as terraces, fill them with good soil to begin with, design a path that makes hubby happy and doesn't look awful, and build drainage in as needed to direct the water away from your house. And working above ground height in your garden sure is easier on the back. To see what this would do, draw the area to scale, start trying out path lay outs that meet DH�s needs and then measure the remaining land. What size containers will fill it? Any container that you can make drain holes in will work: horse troughs, big plastic tubs, wash tubs, big drain pipes if you like round, hypertufa. You want to use containers that will never rot because these will be heavy once filled with soil. You can spray paint if you want color, face with rock or brick and mortar, stucco. Imagination is the limit. The container must be something that won't crack in the winter from freezes. Use one big container on each side of the path or a couple to create irregular shapes or curves. The bigger the containers the better because they won't dry out as quickly in the summer and I would avoid clay pots or tubs because they dry out faster than a non breathing material. If you choose something taller than 18 inches, fill the bottom with gravel or even Styrofoam and then about 14 inches of soil. You want to leave room to mulch the containers just like regular beds to keep weeds out and moisture in. You may find that every few years you need to add some soil, but that's not that hard. For big shrubs and small trees you would need really big, deep containers like they use in conservatories. You could make one or more water containers (as long as you design in mosquito controls like fish or dunks Then for your paths, think materials that won't be lifted by running water: bluestone dust, gravel, and I would go porous so water drains down as much as possible rather than rushing down the path (I'm assuming you plan to switchback the path at least somewhat. Or you'll need to figure out where the water is going to and install black drainage hoses to take the water where it will do no harm or erosion. You would not want to use anything organic on the path because the idea is you don't want weeds to ever grow on your paths. There is no reason you couldn't create a completely natural looking garden as if you had simply terranced and planted in the soil or something unusual.

IMHO, this type of planting that the OP shows in the original post, is somewhat of a reversal to mass landscaping that was done about 40-50 years ago by builders in the "newly developed suburbs" Hubby and I bought a home 28 years ago, in a well developed, but small development whose homes where already about 25-30 years old. Houses where built in the old fashioned design of remove just enough trees to build the house and leave plenty of land for each home. Houses have 1 acre of land, lots of trees around it, most with quite large land frontage etc. It's when the landscapers came in that the disasters where created and it was with every home in the development. Nothing was appropriately planted, tress where shrubs should be and trees that would grow to be huge disasters in their planted locations where placed all over the place and at the foundation of houses. When we bought our home, my hubby thought I was crazy. the house was wonderful, the land was more than an acre to have. Beautiful frontage, very long and large driveway that holds more than 8 cars, and surrounded by beautiful woods and an already chain link fenced in back yard for the 2 year old to play in and added to all that, it was a dead end road and we where the next to last house on the street. It was the landscaping that was the total disaster. I kept telling hubby, don't worry about that part. It will take several years to repair the disaster, but I could do it, I grew up on a summer flower farm. It's been a daunting task over the past 38 years but this is what was and has been done. The front of the house was covered with arbovite trees, all leaning on the front of both sides of the front stairs. One side completely covered the picture window so that no light could come in. 4 weeks after moving in, we cut the trees down to the ground. In the fall we dug out all the crappy soil, filled with fresh loam, peat, etc. In the spring I got to work on that first bed. Luckily the 2 blue hydrangeas from the market where hardy to this area and they have come back every year, huge and more beautiful every year. Added to the planting with my potted herb garden and the old plastic birdbath that won't hold water but works beautifully as a container planter. and of course other containers end up arriving there every year Opposite the picture window, smack in the middle of the front yard, 2 beautiful Colorado Blue Spruce where planted. They looked beautiful and where as healthy as could be. On the other hand, I knew what the future held for them and it wasn't something I wanted in the front yard, especailly when they where already approaching 7 feet tall. So at Christmas time, we cut those down and gave them as gifts to 2 very close friends for Xmas trees. The following spring, this bed was dug out, leaving the very low remains of the spruce stumps on either end of the bed It gets filled with lots of annuals and has perennials in it as well. lupine under the hanging poles on either side dianthus firewitch on either side of the birdbath in the center under the arbor The trench with bark mulch that you can see in the pics of the flower bed in the center of the front yard, had a 3-4 foot hedge in it. No idea why, but that was all cut down to the ground and I fill the area with pots of plants. To the left of the center bed, way in the front on the left side, you can barely see what was left of a rhodie. It was 8 feet tall when we moved in. I had hubby cut it way down to about 2 feet. You should have seen his face as he kept saying he was killing it. Of course we all know better than that, rhodies do quite well with even severe cutting. Finally, last year I had my fill of it being in the way. It was cut to the ground and I'm keeping it from growing back. The opposite side of the front stairs at the foundation had the same arbovite trees growing that where huge as well. We cut those down the first few weeks that we lived here, but I never got to do anything with a bed there. Oh, the small stump is all that remains of another rhodie that was planted there. 10 feet tall when we moved in. Cut down to 2 feet and kept there till this new garden bed was dug. The kids took it down to the ground because it would block the view of the new bed. I had no complaints as the beat me to the punch in cutting it down to the ground. I guess, what I'm showing and trying to say is what is shown in the OP first pic is, what I would call, a reversal of fortune. I return to some really dumb and stupid design plantings that existed 30 years ago. No thought in what is being planted, no idea of size that trees and shrubs will grow and the bark mulch mounded is the perfect ingredient to kill what they planted. Fran Almost 8 years ago, when my mother passed away, my daughters friends came in and dug the bed for me, filled it with fresh loam and garden soil and covered it with bark mulch, while we where at my mother's funeral. They knew I would be digging out my mother's perennials from her apartment garden and they created a perfect location to put them in. All I had to do was go get them and bring them home, dig the holes and put them in. I've kept it as her memorial garden and everything that grows in it where either her perennials, annuals from seeds of hers that she had and plants that she wanted to get and still hadn't gotten. That fenced in back yard, the one with the chain link fence, no longer has young children in it. Both have long grown up, 25 and 30. So it is used to hold all my wintersown containers through the winter and until they are planted. The fence itself gets filled with at least 50 different kinds of morning glory plants.

Thank you, renovator8. Not being savvy about these kinds of things, I'm only getting maybe half of what you're saying...if that. I'm really hopeful that the pros who do this work will have far more aptitude than I do, not to mention plenty of integrity! I briefly considered French doors, but my home (& kitchen) are so small that I was hesitant to give up the space they take up - and I don't have AC, so door (with scree) will be open much of the summer. I would consider a door with (a) big window(s) on one side (or on both sides,) though. Do you think my next step should be to hire an independent structural engineer?