Backyard garden plan 2010

I am kind of proud of myself that I created this garden plan. It took me hours to design and draw, hopefully it works out as planned. (Will need TQ to help on execution.) TQ always teases me on going all out on planning. When I shopped for patio furniture, I cut out circles and squares in proportion to map out the arrangement and find out proper size of each piece of furniture. But hey! It works!! No money was wasted.

The lawn slopes away from the house at the back (6"-12"). In the ideal world, I would like to have a low retaining wall to hold the land and flatten the back. Replant the trees because the mistake from "the early years"(see note 1) is so evident. HOWEVER, we have NO budget for hard-landscape. And the little we spend on everything else, the better. So here's the plan. I want to move the spireas from the area close to the house (that's another problematic area; we'll have to clean up the patch and leave minimal plants). We have a lot of forget-me-nots, lamb's ears and catmint from the front that we can transplant good chunks of them and let them run wild at the back. The growing conditions at the back are not the best but hopefully they are hardy enough that they can be "unleashed". Actually we have A LOT of forget-me-nots growing among the grass or through the gravel in the backyard already; I am sure they will thrive. Yes, I know lamb's ears are taller than forget-me-not. The reason I plan this way is because forget-me-not tends to bloom while new lamb's ears are still small. Once it finishes blooming, its leaves are not particularly inspiring. So lamb's ears can block them.

I have been wanting to have purpleleaf sand cherry but I am not sure if they will be too big for the space. Still need some time before making the final decision. But hopefully they will be the only items we need to buy, in addition to dirt and mulch.

Note 1: mistake from "the early years": dogwoods and one snowberry are within the same border (why we did so really puzzles me, considering they are not even at the center). Two lilacs are next to dogwoods, another two are on the left hand side (and the adjacent ones don't even have the same color of blooms). WHY~~