I'm Not Retaining This Wall!

There is a Jeff Foxworthy joke that goes, 

"If strangers regularly knock on the door to ask if you're having a garage sale, 

you might be a redneck." Or, you might be my Grandpa.

His backyard was chock full. He had THREE storage sheds and a whole side yard full of STUFF. I kept a lot of the really cool stuff - old metal carts that will definitely be fun projects to rehab, some useful file cabinets I'll put in the garage, and even some plastic lawn chairs that I plan on spray painting fun colors. But so much of it was junk!

So, after we got rid of the old lumber, the coils of wire, the metal scrap, and those sheds, we were left with a really good size backyard. It's about 20 feet deep and 53 feet wide. Unfortunately, there was a 5 foot wide retaining wall running along the entire back wall. There was also a huge ugly plant in the middle of it and some crazy ivy in the corner. 

{you can see the edge of the ugly tree on the left}

{attack of the killer ivy!}

At first I thought, "oh, it's a raised planter!" Then, I thought, "It's a jumping off point for a mischievous dog!" And it had to go. 

First, we had the huge tree removed (and no, there's NOTHING I can do about that ugly telephone pole). Then, we had them take down the wall!

And afterward, we were left with a big dirty stain on the wall and a 5 foot wide strip of dirt. 

{please disregard the toilet ;)}

What do you think I should do with this space? I'd like some sort of privacy hedge, but I don't want to deal with a lot of pruning or maintenance. Maybe bamboo? Also, it would be fantastic to cover that telephone pole in some way. Maybe a star jasmine vine? Give me your ideas!