Hello gardeners!

I'm visiting your forum from GW kitchens.

My medium sized backyard is begging for a renovation. I'm looking to do some hardscape, shade tree, ornamentals, and edibles.

I care about: native plants, attracting beneficial insects and birds, careful planning for water drainage, space friendly and playful for dogs and kids, patio near the house itself, (no height for a porch)and addition of a very narrow parking pad. Possible tea house/play house structure.

My insanely athletic dog can jump just about any fence, so I am planning to install a zip line - for which I suspect I'll need to find someone other than Landscape artist.

Problems with the yard currently: deeply embedded variety of tenacious vines, weeds, bare patchy areas. Battling (like everyone else) mosquitoes. Definite rodent problem in the area to defend against.

The house is a traditional, middle class Baltimore brick row home with a long narrow yard. My style is fairly easy going, I love a clean simple and relaxed look. Not too modern, and definitely not fancy. Ferns, evergreen, weeping trees, blueberries, flowering things, some big rocks, some lawn but probably not much.

My house is smallish, so I want to maximize use of outdoors and hopefully make it a space I can use almost year round, despite our sometimes severe winters/summers.

Thanks in advance if you have any experience with someone reliable and thoughtful - and honest, good communicator - in the Baltimore area to help plan and implement this project.

~BalTra