Just sitting here nodding in agreement with a lot of posts. I think the most important thing at this point is to look at your property and decide the functions you will use it for down the road so you don't ruin the space when you get around to addressing it. Yes, leave access for getting trucks and machinery to various parts of the property, even on three acres. Especially on three acres you plan to fill generously with trees. Yes on considering some groves and avoiding onesie-twosies and when the tree bug bites you, and it will, it's very enticing to want 'one of everything' and three of nothing and the visuals on that can be busy and disjointed. You have a big house, and need to consider proportions so that the trees planted near it don't come off looking dwarfed and the house monstrous. We have an epidemic here of mini-mansions festooned with dwarf weeping cherry trees, the branches pruned abruptly like a bowl haircut. We also found it more logical to start close and move out with our plantings. Although we are not close to any other dwellings, I use plantings as visual blockades to scenes I don't care to see and for privacy, so do look out your windows in the general direction of any tree you consider planting to make sure it DOESN'T block what you want to see, and does what you don't want to see. Yes I do plant trees to block sun for the shading effect. If they are deciduous, blocking sunlight isn't an issue in winter and it has a tremendous impact in summer to keep our stucco over brick house cool. It sort of amazed me to see someone mention leasing solar panels. You lease from them for your power, or they lease from you for the exposure and buy the power you generate? In our neck of the woods, it would be a company wanting to sink an oil well, instead. LOL. I have a perfect south facing roof area, but any solar panels ever getting there would be self-financed and simply supplemental in their efficiency. I don't have central air, and having a boiler heat am not interested in retrofitting ducts to accomodate it. Trees size so much more quickly than you think. I have some aerial shots of our property taken fifteen years apart and it's astounding at the amount of canopy we have now, compared to then. Our annual rainfall is adequate for most of our plantings and we have installed some freeze proof spigots away from the house, but I got a chuckle over the remark of 100 gallon tanks for watering. Tried that one year and .........well....despite how large a tractor you have, you'd better have more than a trailer behind it to pull your water tank. The center of gravity shifts in liquid loads. It ain't purty. Yes on buying small for most trees. They establish more readily and catch up with the bigger, more expensive ones quite quickly. I've had just as good success with B and B, but really the only reason I got the ones I did was I couldn't find them container. This is going to take years and it never really gets done. That's as it should be and part of the adventure. I can honestly say I've never had to rip a tree out because of poor placement. Nobody shares the exact gardening philosophy and what's right for me might not be right for you as far as pleasing to the senses. Over the years I have found I've been much more pleased with a tree whose needs have been met than one unsuitable for the growing conditions. A healthy and robust, easy care tree is often more beautiful than one which you much struggle to keep happy. Remember it's a lot easier to attend to correcting things like improper branch angles than addressing the problems they cause down the road. Have fun with it and enjoy the journey, too.

Jeff: Liar, liar, pants on fire! When you KNOW I brought my own crew of ants to help carry the plants to my car... But don't I wish that I had been able to buy so much that I needed help! Instead, I was limited to what would fit into one of those shallow boxes. Maybe in June I'll bring my own bigger one and pile things on top of each other. In my frustration over not being able to buy more yesterday, I went out to Daniels' Nursery this morning and loaded up on Echeveria gibbiflora Mauna Loas and some other things as well. If DH hadn't been there with me as a restraining force, who knows how much I might have bought? Thanks for the ID comments.

I think you've got the right idea to do wall pockets along the front, eventually building it into a living wall of plants. I would plant lots of sedums along the edges of the rocks to help soften the edges of the rocks and they will help fill in the area pretty quickly. I would also plant some mounding plants or bushes at the edge of the retaining walls you already have to help transition between the different building materials. On cutting the back, are you using a push mower or riding mower? Do you have a self-propelled mower? My hill is steeper than yours and I couldn't cut it at all until we got the self-propelled mower. I can now cut across the hill with no problem, the self-propelled mower keeps it going across the hill with little effort. I would highly suggest wearing shoes with cleats or boots though when the grass is damp. Good Luck and keep us updated!

Oh my goodness...ya'll are fantastic. I'm not just gushing, getting feedback from this group is way more helpful than what I've been getting. Ok here goes: - I was leaning towards A as well, but I couldn't articulate why, and B seemed more functional. These comments have put that to rest, B is out. - I really like the prep sink idea, I've never had one. Do they usually have garbage disposals in them? I often set my husband to work prepping things for me (he used to do more cooking, what happened??:). Is there room in a 4' wide island for a prep sink? if it fits and makes sense, I will definitely do this. (The husband is completely against it: "we don't need two sinks". Uh oh, this may become a battle:) - I didn't put the stove on the left wall in option B b/c I don't think there's room. Maybe I'm wrong, but I like at least 2 feet for me to stand on the left (I'm right handed) to put things in and out of the oven. (I don't think I'll have wall ovens anywhere, just sticking with a conventional cooktop/oven combo).If I do that, there isn't much space to the right of the oven. Maybe that's ok. laxsupermom - awesome. totally different than what I would have thought of. I will definitely think about it, and come back with some thoughts. Liriodendron - great point about the location of the wood stove. I've sort of set it there provisionally, b/c I haven't found a better spot, but I will think hard now to create a better spot. We're using the woodstove rather than a fireplace, and as back up heat source. While we have not had one, my family has, so no worries on installing and using it correctly. I can't pick out paint colors to same my life, but that woodstove will get installed correctly:) I appreciate the caution however, b/c I agree, many people are not necessarily aware of everything involved in owning one. Fear not, we are reasonably well educated in that regard. As far as cooking on one, not really planning to. The idea would be that we could heat water/ maybe do a little cooking in a prolonged power outage in the winter, which has never actually happened (and we have a generator, and a grill outside so...). So no, its mostly just a more efficient fireplace (it will have glass doors, so we can watch it), and as a back-up heat source, but without the need to really design it to heat the whole house comfortably or to really cook on. (However, I did sort of like its location for getting wood, and near the kitchen, even though I will hardly ever actually use it for cooking). But yes, I need to move it somewhere else, or provide for people to sit around it. I'm also very aware of the mess it makes, and figure its worth the price:) - ALL - Very Very good point about the view into the bathroom. I intentionally placed the bathroom layout that way so there would be enough room for a pocket door to the closet next to it (on the right), otherwise there isn't enough length of wall for the pocket door. Perhaps I should sacrifice the pocket door for a regular or bi-fold door, so I can flip the bathroom layout. I completely missed that now obvious problem with the view into the toilet, so thanks for pointing it out. I'm going to think on it a bit, I may just move that whole bathroom.