landscaping-starting over

one of the first things we noticed about the house is the landscaping. out front are large, boring looking juniper bushes and in the backyard, a huge cedar tree less that 10 feet from the house. Julie's mom immediately commented on the tree, when they had seen the house at the time we thought to purchase the home. i thought the front was quite boring, and also a natural trash collector, so i started cutting down the bushes out front.
i'm pleased to say all the juniper bushes, and their roots, are finally gone. in their stead is a few piles of dirt and the old sprinkler system. i even took out nearly all the red pebble bordering the bushes and plan to put that on the side of the house, to make a less messy walkway but also to keep dirt from splashing onto the house siding.

the current plan for the front is to make it a wildflower/herb garden. i'll also add in 2 sprinkler lines to help automate watering. i plan to put mostly low-water plants but i'm sure part of the mix will be plants that like a lot of water; i'm still working on the full picture.

in the backyard, we've cut down the cedar tree. that required a permit from Burlingame as well as professional tree servicers due to the size. in its stead will be a japanese maple, so i thought it would be nice to do a japanese/asian theme in the backyard. maybe some hostas, fuschias for around the tree and some bamboo grass. possible some rock features but not sure.

bordering the north side of the house, and the backyard, will be a bamboo fence. G will put that up along with some friends or who knows. sounds like this will go up in february or march now, rather than december. this is highly dependent on getting the bamboo shipped from asia, which appears to be the hangup now.