Don't want responsibility of grass, what are the options?

[LadyWithEDS]

South facing 35 feet deep, 40 feet wide. I am thinking of redesigning. Would a court yard style work? I was thinking of persuading neighbours to agree to allowing me to do rendered white Walls, paint the fence White if the bastards won't let me and have low level retaining Walls for planting. Would plain paving slabs look ok? I was going to put in ever green foliage, with White climbers and White perennial planting, and some veg in-between.

Hi Lady Courtyard sounds good, my friend did a similar thing and it looked great but she was getting into the growing your own veg flowers etc and had three raised flower beds and she grew cabbages, onions brocolli in one and middle one herbs (rosemary, parsley, chives) in another and the middle one flowers (roses, snap dragons and camelia azalea) it looked lovely and the beauty was it was easy to manage no bending down

or fake grass?

Don't do decking. Palaces for rats.