When I bought my house (in Northern CA) the backyard was neglected due
to multiple broken sprinkler pipes and it was a playground for
previous owner's dog. The lawn area had no grass, and it has a raised
brick flower bed about built 1 feet high. Some kind of fir (?) scrub
is in it, but nothing else.

I have repaired the sprinkler circuits to the flower beds and the
soon-to-be lawn area.

I am going to work on adding some plants now. I have a few
questions.. No particular goals, I'm not an avid gardener (maybe not
yet), just going for easy maintainence and a better looking yard for
now.

1) I plan on installing the landscape fabric (those weed blocker
cloth) over the flower bed soil, and then put some bark over it for
easy maintenance. Is that a good idea?

2) In the past when I have done the above (weed block + bark), I cut
slits or hole in the cloth for the plant installation, the grass would
always find it's way up and is hard to remove, especially around
roses.. is there a trick to it? Infact, as of now after the rainy
winter, there are some grass on the flower bed already.

3) regarding the lawn, from the patio to flower bed is probably only
about 10'x20' area I guess it's not completely dead, after the winter
some spots now have grass on it, but the grass is thick bladed, sparse
and not good looking, I'm going to try to break up the soil and apply
seed. Any tips here? There are also plastic nets as I break up the
ground, I assume it was from previous sods, do I try to remove as much
of this as possible? I figure this is the best time to seed while
it's not too hot yet.

4) I have installed a 8x8 vinyl shed on one corner of the lawn area,
just on top of the dirt. I layed the weed block fabric before I
installed the structure, the fabric overlay the floor of the shed
about 1 ft in each side. I have no idea whether to trim it flush
around the shed and just let grass grow, or do I establish some kind
of parameter? There are 2 sides of the shed that are adjacent to the
flower bed and fence respectively, creating a small "alley" on each
side, and I really do not want anything to grow there. In those two
sides, I was thinking of putting some gravel or bark there on top of
the fabric, what do you think?

5) Finally what kind of small plants do you recommend for the flower
bed? I'm going to remove the existing shrub, weeds and moss and
start over. Due to over hanging trees and fence, it does not get a
whole lot of sun. I'm thinking a variety of short plants and some
roses would do for now.

6) I also need recommendation for scrub head sprinkler. I want both
side of it to be wet, the problem with the orbit head I got is that I
have to turn it way down, and it is a trickle stream of water, if it
was strong enough to be a spray, it shoots about 10 ft in each
direction which is getting the house and fence wet.

Thanks for any advice!