So I have like five more minutes of sawing and 15 of mattock work at all before the organic parts of my yard are finally totally rehabilitated after five years

Like a tree service in January to take down some 3-story Mediterranean cypresses but 100% completion on everything from 1.5 stories to 2 feet under.

Next year I’ll be ready to plant a fughenzou sakura and an ume I still have to pick the right varietal of in the backyard for interest and privacy screening

The real next step though is to find the right contractor to rebuild my retaining wall

• including poss. a section of shoring up the slope back towards my rear neighbor
• minus a chunk on the side to carve an opening for a basement entrance for a future apartment
• including a section in the rear separating the upper from lower level and half-level planter
• with a shallower ramp and the steps shifted to the other side of the yard passing over this
• ramp rapped around a bulge landscaped to look like a craggy outcropping for a hot tub
• which discharges into and waters planters on the half-level

Then as long as we’re running water and electrical out there anyway put in a showerhead on the lower level and a small wet bar on the upper for entertaining, some electrical outlets too

And another main faucet, to replace the one patioed over with one a hose can actually reach everything from, and to water the planters if the residents aren’t in a hot tubbing mood

Oh, with the wall replaced, get a new fence and gate

Replace the main bedroom windows with a sliding door and the 2nd/office’s rear window with a door, build a rear patio, with steps down on either corner, leading to the ramp/stairs

Get a serious outdoor grill. This isn’t just Patio Man talking, the idea is to make the back a complete living space not least because then with the purchase of a composting toilet I can just live out there in the summers while the interior gets gut rehabbed.

Plant a Japanese maple (again, need to figure the varietal) shading the hot tub, plant rootstock for a tree-of-many-fruits in the side yard

Dig out where the shower discharges, line it with plastic and fill it with pumice, create a French drain so it’s watering the ume

The half-level planters cascade so they shed their excess outside in the side yard, do the same there feeding the tree-of-many-fruits but then create a new compost box above it so the water outflow soaks it and washes nutrients down to the tree

Then I can start work on the inside.

Like when I say that I’m gentry, part of that is evaluating, selecting, and improving real estate is a real passion project of mine