Perhaps if you look at your outdoor spaces as outdoor rooms, it may help you personalize and organize the areas. What I see in the photo is a small front yard divided in half, and a tree placed exactly in the center of the other half, within a little square of bed. I expect you would not do that with an interior room. A visitor will be compelled to race down the hallway to the front door, and probably not even notice the tree, since it is not part of a composition, a furniture grouping. You enter your living room to a welcoming composition of a furniture grouping, lamps, pictures on the wall, drapes (I hope) on the windows. You get the idea. Would you put a post lamp in the middle of an empty room? It would tend to diminish the size of the space and it's usefulness as a space. Would you put a carpet down the center of a room? -- only if you were creating two separate scenarios of equal size. You need some on-site advisers, whether they be landscape architects or interior designers, someone or more than one who will offer their experienced suggestions for you to consider, but not immediately act upon. You need to live with your new spaces and walk through their ideas for weeks, or months, before making a decision on how to proceed. Perhaps it would help you to read the thoughts of some international designers like Bunny Williams, with her book, On Garden Style, where you will get the feeling that the views of the outside rooms from within the house are as important as the views from the street. You will want to move the maple out of its central location, remove the central path, - and the conifers scare me. You really have a very small space up front here. Take a look in the park at the size of a mature conifer. They will occupy your yard and that of your neighbor, as they develop as nature intended. They are very beautiful, a work of art, but space-consuming. You may have room in the back yard, but be careful when blocking the magnificent views from within the house. Perhaps you will provide an entrance to your outdoor room over to the right, near your property line, with the tree, the lamp post, a small chair or bench, a bed of small plants that have beauty and fragrance throughout the seasons - a space you would like to sit in yourself, perhaps have coffee with the neighbor, or the kids hang out with a pal. Then have the walk work its way over toward the entrance area - not the door, but the welcoming area before the door, slow them down to enjoy the sequence, while providing a most pleasant view of this area from within. Make the plantings permanent, with no soil or mulch to show, after two years, as the groundcover plants mature and cover the beds. Keep all the annual plants in containers, to be stored away if empty, so the views of your spaces are not distracted by an open area in the bed where the annuals have departed, or an empty pot. Consider excluding your auto from your outdoor room, your welcoming area. You don't have room for a real screen, so just a suggestion, as a small hedge or plant bed to stop the eye before it gets to the drive. Perhaps the view beyond the drive is attractive, so all you need to filter from the view is the driveway pavement itself, as the car belongs in the garage, yes? Sometimes a little perimeter fence with a gate says welcome to my special space. In your case perhaps a darker color, not the typical white, which would be a high contrast to the house and not appropriate here, grabbing all the attention. What I have offered may be of no use to you, however, the intent of my words is to provoke you to analyze first, then plan. Consider alternatives from all viewpoints before deciding how to proceed, as these spaces and plants will be a part of your life for many years. Good luck to you. Continue the process at the tortoise pace, not the hare.

I'll also add that possums and parrots love eating them (and making a big mess underneath them). Used to drive every member of my family who had one mad. You wait months for the buds to form, then one pillage from the critters and that's it. So if you are in an area with those issues, maybe go for something else or be prepared to put in place lots of protection. Don't remember if anyone mentioned that magnolias come in dwarf varieties, as well as different colour and fragrance strengths. I believe that dark pink one is called 'port Wine' magnolia. Due to their sculptural shape, they go well with Art Deco and modern house designs.

By the way, first and foremost, you have a positively beautiful home!! The point of the pilar is support, due to the very large open plan you have and the roof needed this support to make the building safe. Our daughter has a steel pole in the middle of her home like this for the same reason and as suggested by a few other people, she plastered it and it is painted the same colour as the walls and I don't think it is really noticed much at all. I think it has been suggested that you could build a book case etc.. but then you would lose the ability to watch tv for example when eating your meals, if that's what you already do. I see you have allot of exposed brick work too, well that's my pet hate like you hate the pole and I would have to dispose of this look entirely and plaster it if I lived there BUT It looks good in your style of home and I think you simply need to focus on everything else in this gorgeous home and simply try to embrace the pole if that's possible however, if you really can't do that, then please make sure you get a good interior designer to give you the best possilbe outcome if you eventually redesign the area, as the pole can NEVER come down but in the interim, I agree to perhaps paint it like the third photo supplied by 2 Find and Design, as it has the cathedral ceiling like yours, so I would imagine you could relate to how it could look, even though I suspect the pole is probably a beautiful type of timber and to me does already look quite nice just as it is. Good luck with whatever you do. Cheers, Barbara

I think the pot is too small for that tree. Also, it could stand to have one or two of the lower limbs removed as it has too much girth for where it's positioned. Agree with Julie about moving the green cabinet and red chair elsewhere so tree isn't having to compete with them.