Barbie, I'd wait awhile before terracing that back slope too much. It looks like it's intentional for drainage away from the house. If you do terrace it, french drains along the terrace would be in order, where the water would come out of the front. I'd get an engineer in to tell you how much slope you should have.

Is that little mound in the back by the door a septic tank? I know some of the older houses had them way too close to the house, and they caused problems if they ever leaked. If that slope is a drain field, that makes it even more difficult to level it out, because you need it to drain as far away from the house as you can.

Again, I'd find all this out and get an engineer in to see exactly what can be done.

As for shade plants, there are TONS of them that will grow up here in N. Florida. Are you 8b or 9a? Cannas, gingers, elephant ears, bleeding heart clerodendrum, even some amaryllis do well in shade. The list goes on and on. I have mostly shade here in Gainesville, so I'd be happy to help you with some plants when the time comes.

Hi Barbie

Congrats on the new place! It is nice to start new and fresh ideas for landscaping.

I am not much of a landscape designer, but I have seen beautiful ornamental gardens in shade, one of them was Mark and Judy's garden.

I am looking forward to see your new gardening adventures, the slope reminds me of a house that we had in Mass, it was difficult to mow....

If you want a cohesive, well landscaped yard, someone must create a landscape plan on paper. If you're not going to have a professional landscape designer do it, it would be up to you to create the plan. You can get suggestions here, but "throwing" a whole yard to the forum is overwhelming, and the discussion -- talking about any and all parts of the yard at the same time -- is hard to follow. It would be better to limit a thread to a discussion of of the front yard only (or other individual places) as a starting point, and then move on to another areas (probably each in a separate thread) once the discussion is complete.

For each area under discussion you have to show the space, including surroundings, in a manner that it can be understood. For foundation plantings, you need to line the camera up with the center of the wall and square on to it, at about 30' away (this depends on the size of your house ... farther for larger and closer for smaller.) Then, you need to take a panning series of slightly overlapping shots from far left to far right so the entire wall can be shown in its surroundings. And you need to state your goals and objectives in order to get feedback that corresponds with them. If you're looking for help with perimeter plantings, you'd take a similar series of slightly overlapping pictures in the reverse direction, while standing with your back at the house.

I am sure that I will have plenty to share and individual projects to tackle as time goes on. Just hoping this doesn't fall through as the last house did.

No septic, unless it is an old unit as the home is on city water/sewer. I know i will definitely have to incorporate some type of drainage to facilitate the runoff though.

Wow, Yardvaark. You really laid it out there for me. Thanks! I would have never known that someone would need that many photos of a space, nor how to take them the best way. I'll try to remember to post in incremental sections when I do. I plan on putting the plot to paper, but for now, I'm only looking to share my excitement and for general comments from people that had similar situations with the slope and/or deep shade issues. I can't even begin to truly plan out the space yet, only to dream a little of the things I'd like to see accomplished. <3

Barbie