I'm sure your neighbors were happy to see veggies, even bolting crops, over the weedy yard, Spaghetina. Here's a couple of suggestions I have from my time growing organically up in SF and Marin. 1) Most of those flowers of the bolted veggies are edible and tasty. While the leaf flavor has turned bitter through the winter and the taste change that comes with bolting, the blossoms often gain a very interesting taste that is great topping salads or lightly fried in certain dishes. 2) If like germinating your own crops from seed, remember which of your crops are heirloom (their seeds will usually produce true) and which are F1 or other hybrids -- it's seed is typically still viable, but may have very different characteristics than the parent. The GW seed exchange forum is a great way to get those exotic seeds you mentioned w/o having to pay catalog prices or drive all over the Bay area, but you need your own seeds to reciprocate. Some of the best plants & veggies in my yard are from trades I've made with other GW members. 3) To my way of thinking, your soil mix seems too heavily focused on decomposed organic matter and doesn't take advantage of the alkaline SF clay topsoil and it's associated soil flora. The compost/purchased soil is great for nitrogen and drainage and you can artificially pump up the P/K/Fe to grow good veggies & plants in it, but organic amendments like blood & bone meal, fish emulsion, seaweed and others need bacteria & fungi to free the nutrients for your crop's roots. That's generally not true for soluble inorganic amendments, which is why they are popular. There's definitely a risk of adding weed seeds by using your yard's topsoil in the garden beds, but that soil food web is necessary for growing good organic crops, IMO. For plants that need lots of N and like great drainage, I go 2/3 purchased soil/fully composted organic matter and 1/3 native topsoil. For tomatoes, peppers and others that suffer in N-rich soils, I use 2/3 native, 1/3 organic matter.

I hope the problems cornus florida has been having is more a cause of a change in forest make up than infections but i fear it is a combination. Dogwoods are some of my favorites.

Botann's point is well taken it does supply good fast shade but in my experience they NEVER get taken down once they get bigger until the storms lay it on your house large branches in your yard and an ugly possibly mishapen tree.Folks always plan to but by the time they get around to it the tree is 40-50 feet tall and not easily removed.The Silver maple in our area can grow 10-15 feet pr. year up and out( mine do) without much problem a tree your size will be probabably 20 ft tall maybe taller and probably 15-20 ft. wide in two more years if your soil is half as good as mine... Remember the larger the tree the more it will cost to have taken out especially one that close to your abode. Of course this is your decision David

Yippppeeee...got home from the office a little while ago and am excited to see such nice compliments from ya'll! Yes, those are my tomato plants in the 6th picture. When I plated them at the beginning of March, they were about 12" tall. They've grown leaps and bounds since then and have lots of tomatos ripening as we speak. Oddly enough, I can't stand the taste of them and only grow them to give away to friends and family. Prettypetals, I am embarrassed to say that I cannot remember the name of that rose. I have been trying to remember it for about 2 weeks and have been looking on the 'net to try and jog my memory. I think it is either Honey something or Gold something. Out of all of my roses, that is the only one that I can't remember. I love the Mexican Bush Sage and so do the butterflies and lizards and the black racer that likes to hide out and scare the s@%t out of me. We had a hard freeze here a few months ago with temps in the low '20's. I thought I lost the bush but as you can see, it does not seem to have been phased. Purple is probably my favorite garden color.