My suggestion: towards the wetlands, plant white pine, they are fast growing and fairly fool-proof. Along the the driveway, plant Serbian spruce, it's exotic and slow growing.

There's always Taxodium (Bald cypress) and Metasequoia (Dawn Redwood). Both are very tolerant of wetlands, very fast growing, hardy down to zone 5, and non-finicky. Be warned, they also want to eventually become massive trees. The Dawn Redwood is exotic because of its prehistoric heritage and buttressed roots; the Bald cypress is exotic because there are not too many trees that will actually grow in standing water, and those weird Bald Cypress "knees" are about as exotic a picture as you can find in the plant kingdom. The Taxodium will want full sun but the Metasequoia will be more tolerant of partial sun conditions. The up side of having those pines removed is that you have a blank slate upon which to work (it can be quite expensive to have large trees removed).

pinus strobus.. white pine.. grow like weeds in MI .... and are VERY CHEAP ... no need to go to goldner welsh and pay real money for the things.. i got one gal one foot strobus at wally world a few years back for $1.99 ... and cut them down less than 5 years later when they were 15 feet tall ... once established.. they can grow 3 to 5 feet per year ... nothing to be planted close to the house mind you ... as you trabvel north on 75 .. you see them lining the highways... by the billions ....

besides those listed above .... exotic is a function of budget.. then zone ...

if you are in the bloomfield i think you are in .... a day trip to gee tree farm north of jackson state prison.. including a couple hours in their arboretum .. would be time well spent .... they offer a couple thousand variations on the theme of conifers ... and run the gambit on what exotic stuff can be grown in MI ...

good luck

ken

ps: please define what exotic means to you .... those listed in the previous post.. are plain old green plants .. that fit your fact scenario .... but i define exotic as anything but green.. including multi-colored plants ...

Thanks for the suggestions. I would like something with a bit of color on the slow growing side and of course something tha can grow in clay or even standing water in zone 5? I'll start another post regarding this and see what happens