Thanks to everyone for posting a reply! :) I've been really busy with work all week. ideasshare, thanks for taking time to edit and post the photo. I've included another photo showing a pile of rocks that I have salvaged from my property when I moved here. I'm intending on using them somewhere...some in the frontyard and some in the backyard. It'd be neat if I can have some moss too like you suggested. gardendoll, i too realized that I have to consider that the areas around the sidewalk would have to withstand winter salt and doggy waste. I don't want to rely much on perennials as they won't be around all year long. I wouldn't mind few but I'm mainly aiming for evergreens. Do you have a thread going for your new garden plan? woodyoak, I really thought hard about your suggestion and you really made me realize that my squiggly paths are pretty silly! I tried again and posted an updated plan below. It hasn't snowed here yet but I did some walking around and found out that you were correct about only curving when going around corners. Yes, your assumption is correct in that there will be gates on each side of the house...as shown on the updated plan. berndnyz5, you are correct. Before removing the Mulberry tree, I knew there'd be a trade-off with loosing shade but the trade-off was easy considering that the tree was a female and the mess that the fruit made was unbearable. The tree was also an eyesore in my eyes as it was stumpy and hacked by previous owners. It also had a split in one of its trunks which was an accident waiting to happen. Since the house faces west though, when I walk out the front door at about 6 PM in the summertime, I get practically blinded by the sun :S I am aware of the metal brackets that you are referring to and those are what I intend on using for my wood posts. As far as I thought cedar or pressure treated wood will eventually rot. I have until the spring to decide on which type of wood regardless :) There is an old lady who has lived across the street for the past 50-some years and told me that the hedges that I removed had been there for around 40 years. She also told me other neat things like how the driveway used to be by the south-west corner of the property. Anyway, the hedge did provide some privacy and noise barrier but at the expense of being ugly (especially in winter) and super high maintenance in the summer. It was too linear for me and I just couldn't take it any longer. I was surprised after I took it down that I haven't caught one person cutting across the front but regardless, I agree with you and am planning on having something near the NW corner. I was thinking about possibly a small berm/rock garden near the corner but I am unsure how I could link that to the bed beside the driveway. I'm thinking about having taller matter on the NW side and lower matter on the SW side as technically my house address is for the street on the SW side (i.e. the side that I'm planning on putting the new main walkway). Thanks for pointing out about a mulch walkway would be a never ending cycle of tracking it inside the house. I'm going to have to rethink the material for the secondary walkways. I'm planning for the main one to be 4 feet wide and the secondary ones to be 3 feet wide. I'm okay with spending more money on the main one (i.e. tumbled pavers) but need the secondary walkways to be a complementing less expensive material because the walkway are going to be so long. As for the conifers, I'm planning on choosing ones that are appropriate scale for the property and that are slow growing. Since they will grow slowly, if any pruning is eventually necessary, it don't see it as being nuisance at all.

Thanks again everyone for the very kind comments! As far as breaking the 11th commandment, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's pond, well, I'm very guilty of that one. It is all the pics on this site that I've examined with almost stalker-ish fanaticism that has given me so many ideas and inspiration! Okiee-I'm using a 20 watt Pondmaster UV light and a discontinued filter that I got for very, very cheap (the Hozelock trinamic). The filter is rated for ponds up to 3000 gallons with heavy koi loads. As my pond is only about 1200 gallons, I think it's doing its job of keeping the pond very clear! LOL I oversized the filter because I know that my pond is overstocked. Lisa - I am going to be adding a 500 gallon addition to the pond this fall to hopefully give the koi some extra breathing space to grow. But, I know that because of the small size of my pond - even with the addition - I will have to likely have to part with some of my koi eventually. A local cafe/pottery shop/artist's retreat has several ponds with koi. I might ask them if they want some of my koi if they outgrow the home I can give them. I'm also planning on hooking up with some other local water garden societies so I can meet people who may welcome some adopted koi. I just want to make sure they go to a good home someday. But, before I get ahead of myself, I probably should just try to get them through a Wisconsin winter!! LOL (see my post on overwintering koi under thick ice)

El, Not knowing your house water system layout and how you have done your irrigation take off from it, I could only makes a guess as to what is happening. The refrigerator ice maker is usually tapped onto a copper waterline stub coming from the wall behind the refrigerator. It should be part of the line that your outside house faucet line comes from. Are your front yard and backyard on two different water sources. I would expect you to have problems with other appliances and faucets in your house. Are you experiencing more air in your water? My recommendation at his point is to have a plumber/irrigation installer or anyone that can troubleshoot your water system. I would end up recommending something they would do very quickly but you may find difficult. I would take pressure readings at different points in your system. You may have a defective pressure regulator. Has the pressure at at your indoor faucets and washing machine gone down? Remove your irrigation connection and test the pressure and flow from that point. Remove the closest head to the each front yard zone valve and turn on each front zones. Listen and observe what happens at those removed irrigation heads. A slight hissing noise can either be a suction or too much air in the water. Either way it bodes that there may be a leak before the valves. The main idea I am trying to say is to check your water mainline sources. Your house is not old enough to have serious constriction of your waterlines from calcium build up. Hope you solve your problem and have a Happy New Year. JMHO Aloha

Thanks! That's a good idea. I'll have to get some of this years photos together for an update. Yeah Pete, I'm in Patriot Indiana (the middle of nowhere) about two and a half hours from Columbus. The hill side drainage is great except for the top soil washing down the hill leaving rocks and clay with the occasional low spots of great soil. There's also springs of water that gush out during rainstorms from all the water coming down the hill. It is a fun and interesting landscape to work with. Pete, are you a member of the ACS (American Conifer Society)? There's a conifer weekend happening in Columbus next week the 14th and the 15th. Two days of touring great private gardens and a few public gardens in the Columbus area. The evenings wrap up with stuffing your face with fellow coneheads. There's sometimes an auction with cool plants for sale too. The deadline for registration was the 5th but I'm sure that they could squeeze you in. I think the membership is $35 a year. If you want the info, PM me and I'll email it to you. Would be cool to see you there. If not, no pressure. I'm not the most social person but I have fun when I push myself to go.