Any design on what to do next to my patio problem? I live in an apartment complex and enjoy a fairly hulking backyard,...

I live in an apartment complex and enjoy a fairly hulking backyard, its mostly part sun/shady...my husband and I own landscaped near pond, waterfall, bbq nouns, and planted shade/part-sun loving plants all around...
The problem is the apartment owner refuse to spend $$ to prune and maintain the pine and redwood trees that grow around the property. They also border the balustrade of our backyard and constantly drop redwood leaves and pine needles 24/7....we also have a dog and he loves to be in motion in and out of the doggie door and saunter around the yard, but we want to enjoy some kind of groundcover so hes not other tracking mud inside.....
We can't seem to carry any groundcover to grow, because once it grows seedlings or begin to root, we either own to try and gently rake and they catch pulled out....or we let try to agree to them grow and they get smothered underneath pine needles etc!
We tried putting bark down, but its realy difficult to serving spoon poop off of bark/gravel etc....
Any design / solutions apprec.!
Can i put a 13 foot trampoline contained...
Answers:    Strawberry ground cover (Fragaria var.)comes to mind as a 'light traffic' tolerant ground cover that will grow beneath pines. Since I don't know where you live, I would suggest using a go through engine for 'plants under pines' beside your location and maybe even add on on 'foot traffic'. Here in the West I swear by Sunset Western Garden Book that give answers to almost any garden situations.
Cheap and natural trellis for cucumbers?
Use a shop vac to suck up the leaves and needles until the cover is good plenty to rake. Put a wide nozzle on it so you don't own to do as many pass.

This one is built for it.
http://landscaping.roughly speaking.com/od/driveway...

You can also get fully grown grass surrounded by 1 square yard sheets at some nurseries.