The pool fairly dominates the yard, which is fine ... lots of potential fun, as has been pointed out. But the decking is seriously inadequate. The vision that's popping into my head is a pool deck/patio that is good size--dominates the yard--with cut-outs in the paving for planting. But we can only see so much, so what your comprehensive needs are is anyone's guess. Pavers would be great, but if you DIY, do it same as pros if you want a satisfactory result. If you cut corners, then it would be better to have professionally installed concrete. It won't do you any good to have a bunch of loose ideas-- tree, grass, hosta, arbor-- floating around. This is how people design hodge-podges. You need to commit all of the ideas to a pencil and paper plan that is drawn "to scale," in order to make sure that everything fits and works. It would be fairly easy to draw since everything is square and the overall space is not too large. You can work out the organization, shapes, and arrangement of elements yourself, if you have the capability, or you can get help from someone who does. Show your work here and you can get feedback on it, if you like. But from the start, be realistic about the budget. Don't create a dream plan that can't possibly be implemented. If you are DIYers, then include your skills and capabilities in the budget. If you're reasonable about the plans, you can make something great happen here.

I'd give up filtration and sanitization before I gave up the ski pond,LOL!!! I'm a guy who wants his cake for free. During the post hurricane/economic crash down time we've had 3 of my excavators out there to keep my hands busy. I laid the pond out exclusively for a slalom skiing buoy course down the center, a full circle speed lap course, and a multi gate buoys course that will incorporate into the slalom ski buoys. My boys, my buddies, and I could have little (4 boat max) in house races, great practice sessions, slalom skiing, and wakeboarding all in the same arena. I'm hoping my prior corner speed plus acceleration down the straight speed arithmetic will bring us into the east inlet of the channel at less than 60mph on the speed lap course, and more importantly that my concave radius channel has enough water apron to accept a boat coming in a little to hot. These babies will dive to the inside on high speed turns, but can drift wide in another boats wake or froth. This past weekend we were eyeballing the channels apron, target practicing, and shooting skeet. Drinking beer afterwords I told my DS and SIL that I'm not going to allow passing in the channel. They were bummed because no passing violates every rule of racing, passing others is what we live for. I'm going to take some ski's to our local lake in the next week or two and set up some temporary buoys with the inside of my radius at a right angle to the shore, come in hot and start moving the buoys closer and closer to the shore. Hopefully I'll be able to use the info gathered to determine if the channel's OK or if I need to widen the outside of the radius. I didn't mean to sound Anti-Cop earlier because I'm not, but they'll probably come give us static when we set up the buoys. The river authority has never a allowed closed course race on the lake and the cops think the water is only there for boaters who're out for a slow speed Sunday boat ride regardless of what day of the week it is. I'll take some pic's as we progress if anybody wants to see them, I'm hoping to be wrapping up soon and that springtimes rain will fill it prior to Memorial Day's weekend. See ya, Kelly

A negative edged pool is one where at least one side is level with the water line. Water spills into a trough below it and is pumped back into the pool. When the water level rises a bit over the negative edge, it spills into the trough. The trough holds enough water to accommodate at least an inch or two of pool's surface volume. They are expensive to build and require a second pump to the the system to operate. The length of it's edge would dictate the effectiveness of the pool's ability to dampen waves. Lane floats, as seen in competition pools, usually offer better dampening for a narrow pool of the length described in sirsimoneaux's post unless she were to run the negative edge along the length, which would be extremely costly to build and might even require two pumps to run the edge properly and still might need the floats. Scott

"I don't know what to mix in this case - any thoughts?" Sorry, but I can't suggest appropriate plants as I've spent little time in your part of the world, and none in northern LA. I've spent several weeks based in NOLA for work, that's it. I just wanted you to be aware that you won't get an even dense hedge of one species with the variability of light levels. I have a more casual style (I live on an old farm) than what appeals to you, so instead of hedges of one species, for the most part I have mixed shrubs, with multiples of each species, mixed along the length of the shrub border. Only in one spot do I have a row of all the same species, and that is in full sun from all sides so that the plants grow at a fairly similar rate. My usual suggestion in this type of situation is that you visit neighborhoods where the gardening appeals to you to get ideas, or if there are garden centers or nurseries with demonstration gardens or if there is an arboretum or public park or botanic garden where you can look at the various types of plantings that they have. To get an ID on a particular plant (if it's not in a situation where it is labeled) take photos of leaves, blooms or fruit, branches and the whole plant, and post on the Name that Plant forum. Or visit the public library and look for books that have landscaping photos for your general area or look at photos here on Houzz that are from your part of the US and see what inspires you. You want to keep in mind that you don't want a huge amount of pruning (so check growth rates once you know names) and that you don't want excessive amounts of shedding of blooms, leaves, seeds, and branches, so something that blooms all summer might be messier than you want to groom. Here's a photo from Derviss Design/Michelle Derviss - she sometimes participates in these forums. Though her area is different (CA coast) it shows a similarly shaped yard with varying light levels around the perimeter and so a mix of plants. She hasn't tried to totally cover up the fence, but there is a mix of different textures and foliage color and varied plant heights. If you look at the closer photos of the pots (go to link below) they also rely largely on foliage rather than flowers. I am not suggesting that you try to emulate this, just that this is one way to approach your problem. http://www.houzz.com/projects/312471/napa-valley-outdoor-living