Our house is on a typical city lot, not tiny, but not too big.  There’s an alley to the side, and without a fence we have a view of the back of a convenience store.
Five years ago or so, we had a landscape designer (Johnstone and Associates) draw us up some plans for the backyard. [...]

I was just looking at the Clatter Valley Gardens website, which I found when looking for which of the ‘girl’ magnolias was most tree-like.  He has the most gorgeous gardens.  They are in Connecticut –  but very lush, almost tropical, lots of color.

So beautiful. I need to plant some more magnolias around the patio.   [...]