also, we are considering getting rid of the jacuzzi spa in the corner of the patio.

thank you yardvark. I have been trying to reply to this since last night and the houzz app on my phone is problematic in doing so. at least for me. when you say "screening" do you mean for privacy? if i go too high it will cover up my water views so I'm hesitant to do so. but i would love a ground (or low) cover of color. my house is 1-story, not two... is that what you mean by 'first floor' level? or is that a landscaping term? I just went out and took photos of the areas that you are referring to ..to see if it's easier to understand.

"first floor" ... I meant the first 10' of vertical space starting at the ground ... equivalent to first floor of home.

Don't you want some privacy at certain places? Some of the places are probably not water view (like toward next door neighbor). And SOME of the water view can probably be traded for some privacy. Landscaping is a balancing act. It's not all or nothing.

Yardvark: ah, thanks for explaining the 'first floor.' you know, i have gone back and forth thinking about privacy vs view and what i'm willing to give up. i would indeed sacrifice water view if i put something up by neighbor as it would obstruct water view from all the bedrooms on that side of the house. there is an elderly neighbor on that side and privacy doesn't seem as important there as it does on the other side, the exposed street side where everyone drives by. I do think it would look 'balanced' to do what you suggested in the photo. what type of screening would you suggest?

One would need to evaluate each space in order to determine where screening is needed, what kind and how much. I think I mentioned earlier how, it's easiest to get help here if projects are "bite size." Usually people are dealing with one face of a house, looking in one direction, such as toward the foundation. Here, we are lumping together a big chunk of yard, looking at foundation, and perimeter, so it could become an unwieldy amount of information before the thread comes to any kind of resolution. It's potentially a lot of information that must submitted by you plus what you will get back from others. It can become confusing to lump so much together in a single thread. To complicate matters, and another reason I have been reticent to jump in on your threads, is that, in spite of the fact that you have many pictures, there is not a good, cohesive set of pictures that well explain how your yard fits together ... as we would see if standing on site ourselves. The pictures are shot from many different angles and don't connect with other pictures. There is a lot of information that must be gathered and understood in order to create a good plan, or just to give meaningful advice.

To take pictures that are useful, stand in a place that allows you to see the whole view and capture the ENTIRE VIEW from that exact spot. Begin by aiming the camera to the farthest left of the view. Rotate the camera toward the right, snapping pictures as you go, with each picture SLIGHTLY overlapping the previous picture. (This way, we can see how things in the scene are connecting to other things, and all of the pictures can be pasted together into a single panorama.) You would stop taking pictures for the scene once you've captured the farthest rightward picture of the series. (A house foundation planting area can usually be captures in only 3 or 4 pictures. An outward looking view of a back yard might require 6 or 8 pictures. It would be difficult to give you a general rule of where to stand for pictures, but it must be where it allows you to capture the entire scene. It must be close enough to things in the picture that we can identify what they are, distant scenery excepted, and how things relate to other things. It could be that a large, complex space (such as a back yard like yours) needs to be captured from 2 or 3 complete views in order to be understood.

Here's a schematic example of what you might submit as one complete view of the back yard, looking outward, with the camera position represented by the red dot. The limits are the red lines and the direction of the shots are the red arrows. This is a suggested starting point for pictures of the back yard:

yaardvaark: your help and guidance are much appreciated. i see the folly of my post.. i think i even saw it as i was writing it because it was hard for me to articulate what my needs were and find a focus for a smaller "bite sized" need. It IS a lot of information..with no clear objective.. or many objectives. From a past post you suggested I take the pics standing in front of say the front door and take overlapping pics from right to left or vice versa. i did try to do it with the photos posted of the backyard on this post but i did it from the opposite side of the yard -- facing the house. your directions here indicate that I should be standing on the patio looking out towards the water. I took photos this afternoon. but now i'm wondering if the trouble is the layout of my yard. even from that angle it is hard to get good images as there is a baby fence up and also the yard itself may not lend itself for good images as it is sloped down towards the water and the dimensions look off at different angles. nonetheless i tried my best and i will be posting the photos. to try to refocus this post, are you a fan of landscaping pool patios (in the middle of the hardscape)? or would you stick to the grassy areas bordering the pool ?

photos from patio looking out:

photos from (west) side angle: these are not in the sequence you suggested but I'm hoping they will at least offer some perspective.

photos from (East) opposite side angle. Taken in sequential order.

forgive the photos with a backdrop of people. it was a beautiful weather day here in South Florida and everyone was outside enjoying the day. we do enjoy our backyard very much and i'm looking forward to redoing the hardscape so i can get to the fun part which is the landscaping.

what i need is a drone to take overhead pics..

These pictures are much better for helping to understand the back yard. No time to do anything with them now, but will get back to it later. Here is the outward looking view for anyone who wants to see. (I'm sure these are not as helpful to others, as they are to me, since the Houzz site shrinks them considerably.)

While there would be many variations that could be imposed, what I'm showing is AN example of how one might add planting and color without obscuring the water views. In this example ...

1. Grove of tree form plants increases sense of privacy and adds color at lower level with flowering groundcover.

2. Groundcover continues in order to connect disparate elements and add a little to the sense of separation from public area.

3. Add palms as the grove looks a little skimpy.

4. Add low flowering groundcover to grass or in place of grass. (Specifically, I'm thinking of perennial peanut as it blooms all but the coldest periods.

5. Add palms to skimpy grove and underplant with flowering groundcover.

6. Large flowering shrubs add color and sense of privacy by screening neighbor's pool cage.

Not shown, there could be a couple of large, low tubs of color on the pool deck.

What you do depends on if the hot tub stays or goes.

yaardvark: i'm salivating! you give me hope that i can have a garden of color without sacrificing view. thank you! it has been so hard for me to wrap my mind around this so i thought i just had to leave the yard bare. i did have to reread and look up a couple of your terms like "grove of trees." do you suggest adding more coconut palms like the ones i already have planted? In a grove do they all have to be similar? Or can i add a bismarck palm/silvester palm and or a shade tree(s)?

In #5 there is a large chunk of yard on that corner that I would like to eventually create a low garden corner with a focal piece like a vertical waterfall or sitting area with pathway or even a palm (bismarck?) as a statement piece.

for #6 what do you mean by large flowering shrub?

btw, i finally understand what you were referring to to get a panoramic view of the area.

if the hot tub stays do you still suggest the low tubs of color on deck? what do mean? like container gardens?

i will be adding a raised wall to the pool with waterfall and i took the liberty of adding it in to your design. what do you think of the sylvester palms flanking it?

To be frank, I think the raised wall waterfall as it is situated, and the palms flanking it, are space-destroying elements. These elements are placed in the prime "window" to the water views. Now all of the water view is broken up into small, less important looking segments.

We use nature's ideas (like a grove of trees) in order to make artistic statements in the landscape that have some power. The grove is a single element made up of many small parts. Adding parts that are of a different artistic family will not make the whole element read stronger, but weaker. Suppose you are creating a hardwood floor. Would it look better to intermix many wood types -- oak, cherry, bamboo, etc.? It would look like a bargain basement mess! Your present groups of palms are single lines of widely spaced palms. To me they look skimpy even after I've added more. If anything, I'd consider beefing them up with even a couple more -- of same type plants -- to each group.

Calling tubs of color a "container garden" makes it sound like a planter with a lot of variety. I think it would be much more powerful to have planters that contain a single variety, and possibly repeat them where there is room for another planter. These are the kinds of things that are figured out more or less toward the end of the planning process (since they are like furniture) after you know what space is available and where the permanently installed elements will be.

For #6, what I mean by large flowering shrub is ... a large shrub that flowers! :-) The intent is to screen the neighbor's pool cage and give a sense of privacy. Therefore, it must be a shrub that is tall enough to do that. Well, why not specify that the shrub puts on a show at least once per year? And actually, it could be SMALL trees combined with a hedge behind, or some such thing. Or it could be an evergreen screen that doesn't flower but just looks really good anyway. The main idea is that is screens and looks good.

ok, understood about the grove and sticking to one artistic family. makes sense ..especially with the wood flooring analogy. about the large flowering shrub, LOL! i deserved that. what i meant was, what type of shrub would you suggest? you got me to really rethink the whole raised wall waterfall location. i had a pool contractor come out today and i'm considering moving it to the long edge of the pool (where i'd be placing a large flowering shrub or something for screening.) if it were kept on the side where i put it on the picture, would you still hold the same opinion if the wall were no taller than 1 foot? would it still be considered 'breaking up the view?"

Per your last question, if it were no taller than a foot or so I would no longer call it a wall. As long as it doesn't compete with or obstruct any important view, then it's no longer an offense on that account.

You are jumping the gun to worry about what any specific plant might be at this state. What I'm offering is brainstorming and scheming. Especially on a project of the size you are contemplating, all of the ideas must be refined and turned into a plan ... that is, committed to paper, to scale, specifying what everything is and where it must go. You can do the work of planning yourself if you have the motivation, skills and inclination. Or you can hire a landscape designer/architect to do it. But someone must polish out all the ideas and commit them to specifics that a landscape contractor can bid on. The planning process is not an extra cost that should be avoided. It is the best tool to minimize waste or mistakes. It is while working out the ideas that one would specify plants, and at that time, one is considering all the factors that influence the decision.

ok on the raised wall and understood on the scheming and preplanning. the reason i have not made a move yet -- although i'm anxious to -- is that i need to have it planned out beforehand for the very reasons you state. i am actively looking for help but i've run into issues here in south florida where most designers will only want to do a master plan IF i will use their contractors. essentially taking away my power to bid the jobs out. i was under the impression -- from the advice i received on these forums -- that i could hire someone to create a master plan. either that is not the case in my area or i haven't found that person yet.

meanwhile, i have become a student of all your generous advice. i learned how to create panoramic shots stitching the photos and cleaning them up a bit on photoshop. They are not perfect but I think they came out pretty good.

yaardvark: i'm going to post the panoramic shot on a new post and shorten my question to make it 'bite-sized' like you suggested to see if i can get some additional design ideas.

For this forum a 'bite-sized' project is definitely better.

The panoramic photos are a great aid in understanding for someone who cannot personally visit your yard. One thing to understand about them though, is that it's essential to post the individual photos that one would use to create the panorama. If only the panorama is posted, a huge amount of detail is lost by the time Houzz shrinks the photo for posting. And sometimes the distortion of a panorama is misleading. With the individual original photos, one can see the parts close up at more or less normal focal length, or paste them together into a single scene. Since I many times draw on people's photos, I care about seeing detail as well as the comprehensive view. For those who don't draw on the photos, they may be content with the panorama alone.

I feel confident that if you make more calls, you can find a designer who will provide a master plan, that is not contingent on further work. Keep in mind that a master plan, while it might be sufficient for specifying planting, it probably won't be complete insofar as specifying all hardscape work. It depends on how complicated the project becomes. There may be some decision-making that needs to happen in addition to the master plan.

If you intend to work out planning yourself -- at least to some degree -- you would need to draw a base plan (shows existing features .... walls, walks, major plants, fencing, etc.), to scale, and then begin roughing out your ideas in plan (bird's eye) view. People here, would be happy to offer comments on it.