I'm sorry, I thought that was on topic. I have no way of knowing if you had also recently acquired the horses, but having done the "horse thing" pretty much all my life, I couldn't tell you how many places I've seen ruined from the owners trying to keep them on too small of an acerage. No matter how lush and green everything was when they moved in, within a year they would end up with a swept bare, scorched earth look that had all the charm and ambience of a feedlot at the sale barn. Nobody *wants* that, but people tend to overlook that the horses have created an eyesore because they're crazy about the horses. I can understand that. I keep an old pony around simply because I'm a sentimental fool, though he's on twenty acres, not five. Anyway, my own specific, non professional landscaping advice (drawn from decades of horse ownership experience) would be that if there isn't already a woody, brushy barrier between the horses and the house, you might want to plant one. (min 20 ft wide, more is better) Start with small flowering trees, and stagger medium sized, flowering shrubs in front. Natives preferred, and in keeping for your idea of a woodsy feeling, something that has berries for birds would be best. I'm thinking this could be the "wild" area other posters have mentioned. That way, when a couple of weeks of rain in the spring turn it into muddy slop, or a drought leaves it a dust bowl, it won't dominate the view from the yard you do want to landscape. Stagger the plantings into small groups, and use a number of different species for year round interest. Not sure what would have fall color in zone 8, but an extension agent or the state wildlife department could give you a list of native plants that would be attractive to birds and such. After that, if you're going to DIY, I'd say to wait a year before you start making permanent (and costly) changes just to get familiar with the property. The best place to sit in the early spring might be too hot in July; you'll only know that after you've been there a while. You might want to turn the swing to face another direction, or decide you don't like looking at the neighbors' outbuildings. The point is, give your place (and yourself) time to settle in.

"...so to put a tighter turnaround just in front of the barn doesn't help. Not sure if I understand how that option would allow more space? I'll attempt to answer your question. What matters of the turnaround is its most confining dimension. The fact that you add bucketloads of straightaway in the rectangular configuration doesn't help add spaciousness to the tightest portion of the turnaround. This is represented by the green arrows for each configuration. It's probably about 10% - 15% greater diameter within the area not confined by the porch. I'm showing the maximum possible turning radius for each config. (The clearance you would leave from building and fence would be the same degree of clearance for each configuration.) Another consideration would be material cost. If a given area is served by essentially 2 driveways covering the same length, obviously it's going to require considerably more material than a single drive in order to construct it. Also, once the project is drawn to accurate scale, you may discover that with two driveways, built at a proper width, the grass in the middle may appear more like a stripe. The only way to know is to draw it to scale, using proper dimensions. "Would our next step be to have our local gravel yard 'guy' come out and quote it?" Say you're kidding! A person can't quote a vague idea. You must work all the details out in a scale drawing that clearly specifies where everything will go. Even if you're doing the construction work yourself, don't you wish to know if everything will be as you envision it ... or have something on which material calculations can be based? You need a drawing that's done at scale. You must convert the "casual" advice you get here to usable advice in order for it to be meaningful. Rather than first producing a finished drawing that can be "quoted," it might be better if you looked at design as a process. Draw a pretty decent sketch of the ideas that you think are the most workable. Then transfer that drawing to the yard by using dayglow colored marking paint, available from Walmart, H.D. or Lowe's. It'll cost a few bucks but is exponentially cheaper than excavation and gravel actually placed in the yard and discovering it needs to be moved. (I'd recommend buying a long handled "marking wand" as stooping over to spray that large area -- even though you're just outlining -- would be torture and a much more difficult job of marking it out.) EDIT: The purpose of outlining the driveway with marking paint is so that you can explore how well it actually works, and to help you envision how the finished product will appear. (Note on using marking paint and wand: first mark critical points that determine measurements. Walk along connecting these points and creating overall outline with dashed lines. Appraise and make adjustments and refinements with additional dashed lines. Once the layout is correct, repaint over all with solid line. The paint goes quickly so you might get about 5 cans.) My opinion of symmetry is that while it is sometimes nice to have, it is hardly essential and under no circumstances able to outweigh resolving function. In its absence balance and proportion work fine.

Cathy, for what it's worth, in the Tampa area, I could show you hundreds (if not thousands) of subdivisions in all price ranges that get the "builders standard" landscape treatment. This amounts to a very narrow walk (the budget is shot by then) and smothering the entrance way (often lining both sides of the walk) with fast growing plants. These are the landscapes that show up here a few years later being detested and ripped out. These landscape designs are not created by anyone who has studied design, but by people trying to scratch a living from the earth by making something prettier today. There is little concern about quality, or tomorrow ... when these plantings will become monstrosities. This is what 98% of America lives with and has accepted as satisfactory. If one is going to put effort into improving landscaping, there's little point in aspiring to mediocrity. It's better to forge a new path.

It's a pretty scratchy sketch but I think you can get the general idea of pinching off the distant open view, making your yard a bit more courtyard-like. With exactly what plants and exactly how I'm not specifying, but the planting beds which flank the yard could be brought toward each other as if they were creating a gateway, but without a gate. Given that you have the large tree, it could either be an island unto itself, such that a grass path separates it and the planting bed behind, or you could incorporate it into the landscape bed behind so it is all one peninsula. What we're employing is psychology. When you make something look like a private space, people are somewhat more reticent to look into it. Or at least get caught doing it. Also, since you'd be reducing the actual "gateway" opening to your yard, there'd be physically less opportunity to look into your yard while someone passes by. If it was me, I know I'd be donating a lovely tree to common area in order to block the view of the house beyond. When it's discovered, the amount of time someone might think "something's wrong" is gong to be less than 3 minutes. And then no one will care. After all, who's going to kill a tree just because it appeared out of nowhere?