Opinions and Ideas on what to replace my hedge with please.

OK so me and Mr Jane sat down and discussed this yesterday afternoon. He now wants to keep the hedge and has agreed that the shape of the lawn needs to be changed to allow enough width for a path along the hedge and a wider bed in front.

However I'm a little concerned with him wanting a lawn which looks a bit like a figure of 8 as the corners will look a bit weird.

 

I like the idea of a path along the hedge (if I have understood correctly?) as that takes up the area of "dead growing space" in front of the hedge. Makes the hedge easy to cut to - and forces it tog et done when you get to that point in the year when you can't get down the path any more!