Our backyard of our row house in DC is teeny tiny and up until recently not in very good shape as you can see by the photo above. Further damage was done when our neighbor decided to chop down his huge pine tree, some of which landed on our fence, along with the other neighbor's cable TV wire. So we had the fence replaced, along with the deck, and the bricks relaid (which were so wavy and uneven from the tree roots that you could barely walk on them).
Below are photos of the result. One side of the fence is our other neighbor's (the dark fence in the second photo below) and we think they are going to have their fence replaced too. It is currently being held up by a rope tied to our crepe myrtle. You will also notice the cactus is blooming like crazy and we added a small flowerbed.
Update: One of the blooms open wide at night.