OH! I would love to get my hands on this! A hearty, softening landscape with little lawn if any, still utilizing grasses, drip irrigation with plantings that dont require much maintenance, still unique and special with year round color and interest. The goal to make the landscape look established for decades by using some mature specimens as the main plantings. Good luck with this, I'm sure it will be beautiful.

What a lovely family space! Tons of potential! I would agree with the suggestions to use a variety of solutions. I too have a big, beautiful giant in my backyard that drops copious foliage in the fall. The previous homeowners began a solution that I'm building upon. Wood chips under the tree (and for you, I'd place them around the playground for the kids), and pea gravel (kept in place by manufactured hardy plastic ground rails) in adult entertaining areas. I intend to dig out some of the gravel and place pavers on a grid, build an arbor, and make a lounging/outdoor dining space in that area. A leaf blower keeps my yard tidy, and I just compost the leaves (though bagging them is also an option). Best of luck to you!!

What a thought-provoking opportunity for comment that you present. Thank you. Grab a cup of coffee, as this will take a while to cover all they areas you refer to, and a few that you do not. Let's list a few of your requests (or hints), first: our first house (therefore moved from apartment or condo or someone else's house). Large pine trees (not pines). Lots of stones (probably a truckload). No playground in front yard, (but kids play across the street in community park). Not lawn lovers (perhaps not garden lovers either, as had not previously owned land.) Flagstone patio between two trees (single tree and a pair of twins) Interested in native plants (suited to Calgary and less maintenance). a. Suggest you contact local native plant enthusiasts, perhaps join them for a social weekend walk to see natives to be admired, make new friends, (and perhaps future customers for your occupation.) Alberta Native Plant Council, 52099, Garneau PO, Edmonton, AB T6G2T5. Check website for Native Plant Societies or American Horticultural Society for more info. They will also help you get your kids connected to the natural world. b. Corner lots are a challenge, aren't they. The former owner turned his back on the community to the south and west with that board fence. It does do a great job, however it sends a message that you have turned your back on half of your neighbors. Sometime in the future: Remove every other or every third or fourth board from the fence and replace it with a lath, or cut the removed board to 1/3 or 1/4 width and put it back. This will open the wall, without really opening it to view, but it will be more friendly. Then you can start adding vines and espaliered plants on the outside (street-side) of the fence to add personality to their view of your home, like a smile to the neighbors, saying "a new and friendly neighbor has arrived, won't you stop by to introduce yourself and have a cup of coffee on my new flagstone terrace in my shady garden?" You can also place that entire truckload of rocks along the outside of the fence, to keep from hitting the new plantings when mowing, and enhancing the native plantings. c. The trees must remain. They are a part of your home. Look around your neighborhood, not even a shade tree, and you have these beauties enhancing the entire area, and admired from afar. You do need to make a few adjustments to their density to fit your family. Firstly, remove a couple branches that obscure or limit your view of the kids in the park from your front rooms and from the deck above. Next remove the lower branches that interfere with movement around your "outside room" - they are your ceiling, so move them up, say 7-8', (2-1/2 meters or so). After you have moved the rocks to outside the fence, spade up or rototill the entire lawn area (within your property), and regrade it so the terrace area is more level. Perhaps removing about a foot of soil from near the stone planter wall and laying it just inside your property line to level it out, like that. d. Consider beginning your entry terrace at the driveway or front walk, extending over to about 4 or 5 ' from the twin trees. where a native shade garden will begin (very different and perhaps more interesting than the plants outside the fence). This may be backed on the northeast by some screen planting, or taller plants that will screen your terrace from the neighborhood beyond. The planting under the "twins" will sweep west and south along the property line to the driveway, enhancing the outdoor room from the street and park beyond. Move that dwarf evergreen from next to the mailbox into a plant bed, and jazz up the planting in the stone planter attached to the house, or convert it into part of your terrace sitting area, or add a sculpture to the stone wall for more personality. I might suggest a portable fountain from the garden center, but that is additional maintenance. And stop calling them pine trees! You can call them evergreen trees, without error, but they are probably spruce, and the "twins" are a different species from your proud "ceiling" tree (perhaps a blue spruce) above your outdoor room. As a final thought, you might invite your new acquaintances at the native plant society to have their next meeting at your house, where you will be the host, and they will all give you ideas on what native plants will do best and look gorgeous in the empty beds you prepared around your flagstone terrace, prior to inviting them to lunch. What fun! How about inviting me over, as well. Our youngest daughter lives in SW Edmonton, and I have never had the ambition to travel that far (from Virginia) to visit her and her family. I like my coffee black with sugar. cascio.offsite@gmail.com

First what is on the other side of the windows? Basically you have a shady area and hellebores come to mind and they come in various colors from black, plum, purple, deep pink, yellow, white and green. some are double flowers. They are evergreen and maintenance includes cutting back old leaves in late winter and cutting off spent flowers after 3-4 months. They are poisonous so not a good idea of you have young children or pets. Look them up in Gardening section or at Gardenweb (part of Houzz). The slope area would look great with a dogwood or azelea, underplant with daffodils and pansies, yarrow and perennial salvia and annuals. By the step, 2 large planters (taller then the height of the step) with dwarf Alberta spruce or dwarf Japanese maples Mrmaple.com; some are really small 5 to ten feet tall at maturity, underplanted with evergreen sedums to cover up the dirt. Planters could be neutral color or a strong accent like bright blue, lime green or deep coral giving you something nice to look at even in the winter. Small leaved boxwood could also go under the windows. If you could get a small drip irrigation system in place it would help with watering chores. The planters need to be watered about once a week in summer about every 2-3 weeks in winter depending on rain. Put the planters on wheels and you can move them to a sunnier area in the summer.