Claudia, Congrats with your new home! Glad to see you posting again. What do you mean by wet clay? Is the ground actually wet? if the soil is wet, you could plant bog plants and plants that love water and they will do fine. Just mix in a generous amount of cow compost in the clay and mulch, you should be able to plant any part sun bush or perennial plant. Just a thought, I jsut bought Liatris at HD on Saturday. I got 60 little bulbs for 14.99. They are perennial, they spread and are beautiful! Look up Liatris online and see if you like the look. Anyway, for part sun climbing hydrangea would love your yard, and it loves to climb on wood without damaging it. Cannas LOVE wet or moist soil, Bananas Love moist soils, you will have to mound it up when you plant it for drainage, but they are beautiful. Ajunga likes moist soil, any kind. Butterfly bush would do fine with manure, they can be planted in part sun, I would plant in sunnies spot tho. Iris would love your yard, if it gets at least 6 hours of sun. Well, that's all I can think of for now, I hope you have fun planning out your new yard. Congrats again,

Also be prepared for things not being exactly the standard sizes that stores carry in stock. I have a home built in 1915, stucco exterior made of terra cotta block, sort of a Craftsman/Victorian. I needed to replace all the windows (they were that far gone due to the prior owner neglecting them for over 30 years) and 3 of the doors which had pretty much deteriorated by the time I took possession. All the windows were odd sizes, as were the doors. 3 doors, turned out to be over $9000 alone because of having to be done custom (and they weren't even that "fancy") and all the masonry repairs that went along with it. Unbelievable. This wasn't even the front door! It was for my side garage door, side door and a French door in a bedroom (that one, the threshold was ruined, causing leaks into my living room). I still have 2 more doors to go but they weren't as pressing and I'm waiting until I feel I can fit it into the budget; front door and a door in the living room that goes to a port cochere. The front door will be ok once it's sanded down a bit and painted, the other one is just a hot mess and I haven't found an appropriate door I like enough. Those two, will be another $4K at least. *cringes* I had to rewire substantially in order to be able to have an updated kitchen and laundry facilities. Knob and tube was everywhere. I'll have to do the same once we get around to renovating the main bathroom. Not looking forward to how much that will cost. The "unknowns" are what will ruin your budget completely. Things that just can't necessarily be seen on your inspection. I purchased my home for $225K. I've now put in just under $200K in upgrades and I'm still not finished. And my neighborhood is not the kind which will get me back that money at this point in time if I decided to sell.

Congratulations on building your new home. Based on our experience here are a few things you should look into: 1) Whether your shed (accessory building) is allowed in your zoning code. 2) The maximum sq ft of the accessory building that is allowed. 3) How far does it need to be setback from your property line. This varies between municipalities. 4) Make sure your Crabapple tree (Malus spp). is going to do well in your plant hardiness zone. http://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb/ 5) Regarding the shrubs, in our planting designs we try to only specify plants that are native to the state and region, because of reduced irrigation and maintenance needs. In looking at your pictures, we think that the swale should be usable space for recreation and repose. The trees can be located near the deck for privacy purposes; we recommend planting mature trees (large gallon size) because of higher survivability rates. If you are using the Crabapple tree for privacy, take into account that their canopy range is between 10'-25' diameter depending on the species. Also keep in mind that Crabapple is deciduous, which means you may want to consider a mix of deciduous and coniferous (evergreen). Lastly, we think you should cluster your plantings along the edges of the sides of the property (not in front of the swale); this would make your back yard look bigger. Good luck with the improvements and please post pictures when your done! -DR, Landscape Designer

Those pictures work. As I've mentioned previously, I would definitely do a return leg on the retaining wall, such that the grade no longer created an open end, inviting washing and erosion from behind the wall. Exactly how the layout goes would be something to figure out in plan view. From the front angle it doesn't looks as much like it's necessary to add a separate second wall above the first. An on site evaluation could determine just what's needed, but I wouldn't be adding retaining walls unless they were necessary. While it's commonplace as all get out, I consider it a shame when a nice house has a majorly underwhelming entrance area. Here, the steps are undersized. They ought to be at least as wide as the doorway assembly including the side lights. They would be dramatically upgraded if they were flanked by a blocky pair of cheekwalls that correlated with the column configuration. That necessitates widening the walk as it approaches the steps. But I think all the fuss and bother is worth it for elevating the entrance status and creating a dramatically more inviting one. In my planting scheme I'm suggesting only two shrubs (one per window), two small trees, the rest being perennials, with annuals flanking the steps, and groundcover linking everything up. If you wanted to busy up the planting scheme a little there's generally room for a little of that without making a mess of things, but subdividing and adding more is something that you'd figure out on a PLAN. I can only draw so much before too many things become covered up. I would imagine there is a high likelihood that two street trees (and maybe one at the left side of the drive if there's room) would be useful, but that would be determined from a picture taken at a distance that shows everything from the curb and back.