CatKim: thank you for your response. I agree we need to have a professional come out and look at the property. The last thing we want to do is regret something. Karinl: a very well designed yard that has reached and perhaps exceeded maturity, you hit the nail on the head. The house is over 30 years old. I know that the PO put a lot of love & care into her yard. She actually stopped by yesterday afternoon to see how we were doing and kept telling us how good we have it looking. We have done a large amount of pruning and trimming. When we bought the house only the top of the Jap. Mag. In photo #3 could be seen for the azaleas. They were also taller than the fence and crazy out of control in photos #7 & #9. The yard was a main selling point for us when buying so I guess embarrassment was the wrong word, overwhelmed is more like it. I think the number of projects just seem to outnumber me at times, however I keep looking at the big picture and knowing it's going to be so worth it! I have been keeping a photo log of the yard over the past year, as we wanted to wait a full year to see what may bloom. I'm glad we did as I've been able to identify a large number of things that we've since decided to keep. Missingtheobvious: I do have an overall plan sketched out. I'll try to scan & upload it soon. In regards to the rock wall, in its previous life it was a large cement koi pond. The very large oak tree( it was removed a few months ago) that was behind it ended up cracking the concrete so the PO filled it in and planted misc. plants on top. We are still investigating to see exactly what shape it's in. It does have water ran to it. Our first initial thought was to dig it out, fix it up and restore it to its former koi pond glory but then this brought to light a few negatives for us. 1. We'd get more joy out of a pond in the rear of the house, where we already have a smaller pond planned to be installed. 2. Keeping a pond in that location would be a pain to keep clean. We had a small pond at our last residence and know the maintenance & upkeep involved. None of the ledges are big enough for seating. We defiantly want to incorporate a focal point, we were thinking of a pondless waterfall feature. I'm liking your third idea and would be curious to hear more. Thank you for the links love looking at others projects in progress and thanks everyone for the input! I've lurked on this website for years so sorry if my first post sounded whiney. We do love our new home & yard I could just do without the yellowjackets, :P

Scott, imho you have a few choice's here. but first if you havent done it follow the above from scottspond. the lower pond should be sized so that if a power failer occurs it can handel the overflow from the top pond. the damn idea may work , but sounds like a pain to me. is the pump running through a filter?? if so it should be run at all times to keep the water turned over and clean. The other option is to install on overflow in the skimmer box run to a drain of some type. just my 2 cents bill

Very Good Don! Hoosier Dome it is! Rosie, the red "grass" is a Cordyline. It's annual here. I always buy at least one every year at a local nursery for 5.00. Yes, I know, friends don't let friends buy annuals, but I plunk down at least 150.00 every spring to plant out all my containers. I did start my own caladiums last year indoors, and all 24 of them came up for me, so I saved a bundle there. ;-)) Rox

I am bumping up this thread as it shows the terraces being done last fall. I just posted pictures of this same garden area all planted this spring. Boy, what a big difference some green growing things, some warmer weather, and lots and lots of very hard work have made. I notice in the picture above that shows the birdbath that I didn't even have the quarterpie garden which is around that birdbath in yet. I know that I put it in late last fall and since this was posted mid November, it had to be after that. I did a brick edging to define the garden area and then I put some layers of newspaper on top of which I dumped bagged compost and bagged composted manure. On top of that went some of my bagged fall leaves (a nice thick pile). On the very top some matted straw just so the leaves would not blow away. By spring it was nice and ready to plant.