What sort of material are you using for the retaining wall? VersaLok you must be able to get behind and put foundation gravel up against the back of it. So depending on the prep work and where you wish for the wall to sit. You may find the roots are a hindrance while trying to prep for your wall. Now if you plan on leveling the area...and building on that surface. I would imagine the roots wouldn't be an issue of the actual building of said wall. Also...how high do you plan on building this wall...will it be deep enough to allow proper planting of anything you wish to put in the area. The last thing you want to do is fight with roots after the wall is in and your planting. For I would imagine trying to take out the roots later could effect your foundation of the wall you plan on building. A lot of factors to consider.

I hate nocking people and while I like the look of the non traditional pool there is a reason people choose low dropping leaves or larger leaves. Your list is horrible, nearly everything on there sheds so your looking for low maintance, good luck with that. LG magnolia is a pretty good choice, loropetalum look great but drop their small blooms and shed depending on variety, Knock out roses are nice but self deadhead, wouldn't put them close to the pool or a breeze would have your pool littered, I am totally with fairview. Its not only about taste its about how much work your going to be doing down the road. If you like the look of traditional check out japanese pools and some of the Japanese maples that drop all their leaves at the same time of the year "making cleanup easier". Jolie, just look around at what is working in the area and talk to a good garden center. Palms seem to do well in many parts of AZ, near phoenix and personally I would go with a purple bougainvillaea or three.

gumper97, that is exactly the look we are going for, except our pool is a rectangle (in keeping with the straight lines of our FLW/Prairie style home). Thanks so much for those plant suggestions. We have about half of what you listed planted in various areas around the house so I know those will survive. I got the idea originally from a landscaped pool area that I saw on Pinterest. Yardvaark, the river rock we will be using is mixed color with some gray and brown tones and we are either going with the 1"-3" size or the 3"-5" size, tbd with some larger rocks like yours placed here and there for interest. I can make the width outside the fence larger than 2' if necessary but I'm not sure if too late to change the plans for the 2' within the fence. My husband wants to do stone instead of grass or mulch because he doesn't want that stuff getting into the pool and he doesn't want to have to mow within the fence since he already has almost 2 acres of lawn to mow. Emmarene, we will have a flagstone pathway leading from our front sidewalk to the pool.

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