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.

Mine may not be the voice of reason but at least it's the voice of what makes sense to me. I've never watered my lawn. I garden on an acre in Southern New England. I garden to sustain pollinators (i.e., bees, butterflies, hummingbirds) since without them we wouldn't have gardens. I researched perennial plants that sustain pollinators, winter sowed seeds, grew & planted them. I continue to maintain my full-sun, part-sun & shade gardens with that as my goal. Along the way, it made me smile that as I dug up and planted garden beds I was reducing the amount of lawn/grass which to me is anathema. In my view lawn isn't evil; it's simply as superfluous as last year's fashions. We don't need it and it serves little (if any) purpose. Don't even bring up golf courses. Golf is simply as superfluous as last year's menu. Sorry to cut this short. Houzz has decided they don't approve of my comments. I'm outta here.

I've avoided offering suggestions for a couple of reasons: first, because of the concrete borders you've already installed. My gut reaction is that if those spaces are planted in a typical way, instead of being an asset they would be a detriment to the overall appearance of the house and property. What compounds this and makes it worse is that one section of the walk is so darned skinny and the turn toward the house is so sharp! it cheapens the overall look of the house and should have been fixed before the borders were added. Second, while you've got a lot of pictures, the information they provide is limited, as the pictures are from all different points of view. What's missing is showing the whole scene from the most important -- front and center -- point of view. The second-from-last picture attempts to do this but it is incomplete and from too great a distance. Hate to be so picky about the pictures but they are what makes the property understandable to us and one of the best vehicles for us to convey suggestions back to you. I suppose the most probable fix is to do a foundation planting based on what the house needs (temporarily ignoring the bordered areas) and then plant primarily low groundcover in the bordered areas. (I would definitely consider perennial peanut for them since you are in Miami.) If you want help for how I think you should arrange a foundation planting, you would need to position the camera in line with the center of the house and midway between house and city sidewalk. It would stay in that position for all pictures, but pivot The series of pictures would span 180*. Begin by aiming far left, and finish aiming far right. We would see neighbor's properties at the beginning and end of the span, and your property at the center. If you look at some other threads, you will probably find examples of such pictures. They can be put back together to show the scene almost as if we were standing there seeing it for ourselves. Also, you might mention if you have any overall goals that are beyond the typical.

thank you for the ideas guys! I'm not very good at visualizing things so this really helps. Yardvaark, i never considered how bushy a Japanese maple would look there. thanks for pointing that out. dig doug it's funny that you put an evergreen next to the house. that was my husband's initial suggestion and i remembered telling him i thought it would look horrible lol but it looks great in the picture. what are good trees to plant in the front area?