The trees are not much of an issue, I have cleared most of the nuisance trees out of the way. (only one old maple now and I'm in no rush to cut it down) lol At this point I hope I don't have too much garden, last week one of our clients had us till up two huge spaces of their yard. Me and the owner are going to tend to it and our client has the benefit of having fresh picked veggies whenever he wants. I want to save those posts as this man, our client, means a hell of a lot to me and I have a whole segment of posting on just him. As far as ownership of the garden in this post, I do all of the work on my own (I have free rain here). I rent the upstairs half of the house, but even better is my landlord is also my boss, the owner of JJ Scapes. Being his only crew manager and air of the business when he is ready to retire, he gives me a great deal on rent and plenty of planting space. Honestly he is more of a father than a boss. I love your Idea about using the stumps for planters, I will probably end up doing just that with the maple tree when I cut that ancient thing down. As much as I don't want to add this, I am also happy to, a pre post, as a landscaper I have access to a ton of building material. I have stacks of bricks from a job I did last year and plan to make raised beds with them. and will fill them with a few yards of compost from our wholesaler. I really hope I'm not in over my head.