Originally Posted By: canuckInOR
I'd design something completely different for someone who wants a large open space in their yard, so they can host weekly BBQs/raves, than I will for someone who's enamoured with British garden mazes. Yet both styles fit the description of "a lovely green backyard with a variety of trees." Both can be done incrementally, but you have to know what you're incrementing towards.

That's a good point. If you do what the Agile community calls Big Design Up Front -- if you go out and buy a truckload of little trees and plant them all over -- then in 20 years' time what you'll have is a stand of trees all of which are 20 years old. If your intended style is "formal English parkland", then that's fair enough -- but if you were more after "natural-looking woodland" then what you need to do is stagger the planting so that you have trees of all ages at any one time. Plant early, plant often.

Peter