First off, I don't know what kind of siding you have, but growing plants right up against the outside wall of your home is generally not recommended. Hard to tell from your photo so it may be okay, but you might want to ask a pro to take a look and see if your planting areas shouldn't be moved outwards from the house a bit. Secondly, Northern CA is a very big place with a lot of microclimates. Even Sunset magazine breaks it up in multiple zones and I personally have always thought they should break up my zone 17 into at least three more. Alameda, Contra Costa and Solano counties have very different weather patterns, IMHO. Anyhoo......how much watering are you willing to do? With the new water bill cutbacks of around 20% everywhere look to be coming on a mandatory basis. This is actually not the season for planting - late fall is when you should be putting in plants, allowing winter rains to water them for free and letting the roots get established (hopefully you have good soil and not clay where they'd just drown). OTOH, the pickings in the nurseries and garden centers are starting to hit their stride so you'll have a good choice of plants coming in over the next few months. The "bible" of western gardening is the famous Sunset Western Garden Book (exact title), a large-size paperback whose latest edition is 2007. You can buy it used on amazon.com very reasonably. This is more for researching specific plants; for ideas about design you might want to go to your local library or bookstore and thumb through "Western Landscaping Book: Companion to the Best-Selling Western Garden Book", which you can also buy used in ppbk at really ridiculously low prices at amazon.com. I suggest you look through the latter first before buying it as it's a 'photo idea' type of book - either you'll see something that's applicable to your situation or you won't. There are hundreds of plants that would work in your sunny garden beds, and just as many that would work in your alcove. None of them are very large areas, so you're only looking for a half-dozen or so mini-shrubs. 'Color', BTW, is really best achieved by plants with interesting foliage that provide contrasting texture/shape/colors to your lawn. Flowers are a bonus that come and go, but good foliage mixes will provide interest 365 days/yr, which in our climate is a lot more important. This grouping, for example, would adore sun and take relatively little water. Substitute an evergreen groundcover like Iberis (candytuft) or even a trailing pelargonium for the nasturtiums on the LH bottom. Since the phormium here ("Rubrum") gets quite large, sub something more colorful, like "Sundowner" phormium, which has lovely pink tones that would pick up your brick trim, is smaller, and has leaves that curve downwards: This is "Sundowner" phormium: Shrub lantanas (as opposed to trailing ones) are nice big rounded mini-shrubs, 3x3', that look lovely with variegated pelargoniums. Both are very drought-resistant and take little water. Pelargoniums come in many sizes, shapes and flower colors, so pay attention to what the tag says (although they can be inaccurate; but you have to start somewhere): Here's a partial sun combination - Strobilanthes (very frost tender and needs some partial shade or it burns), spearlike foliage is a bearded iris, and a round variegated-leaf pelargonium, either "Skies of Italy" or "Mrs. Pollack": The following are examples of shade foliage mixes that turned out very successful and illustrate what I mean about foliage being so much more versatile than just using flower color. In this one it's variegated aucuba, bearded iris, and oxalis siliquosa: This is a chartreuse plectranthus groundcover, a small "Endless Summer" hydrangea, and a "Jack Frost" brunnera: I have this combination in full sun, but both mini-shrubs get good-sized over time, a full 4x4'. They look good together, though - Loropetalum chinense 'Rubrum' and the gray-leafed Euryops (the dark green leaf form is more common, but it gets even bigger, to 6x6'). The tiny daisy-like flowers are Santa Barbara Daisy, a very xeric trailer/groundcover. A purple osteospermum stuck its head in there, too. HTH give you some inspiration!

It's a vast improvement over the shrub-engulfed house we first saw, merely by being cleaned up. One thing that jumps out to me as not enough, is the groundcover, which are few and far apart. The goal is usually to get groundcover to grow into a solid mass for the best look and so as not to need top dressing with mulch anymore and still have weed suppression. But I imagine you'll be doing some tweaking over the next year. As far as watering, it's hard for someone, by remote, to tell you if you've watered long enough. There are a lot of variables in how you might be doing it and with what equipment. If in doubt, dig down and see. It won't take you long to discover the right timing formula.

I think you've made a nice start on your landscape. My advice is not to look at it as a project that must be done before moving on to the next one. Plants and soil take way too much time to change. Fertilize and water routinely and it will start to become even better. Take a 5 year view of the work rather than all this fall. I've found it is much less expensive to let mother nature work with you. I'd recommend 2 projects, then move on to painting or whatever and then come back next year for more. Your side area I would simply lay a thick bed of mulch and let it sit for a year. The change in the soil underneath will be surprising and you can come back later with some flowers and shrubs that love shade. A step further would be to add compost under the mulch and some stepping stones in the middle. I'd do pretty much the same with the back slope area except add some ground cover that works well in your area.

Here is a basic layout that widens the walk, enlarges the bed below the tree and connects to a bed along side of the house, where plantings would be visible from the front. One of its goals is to make the entrance more inviting. You could subdivide the groundcover area further in order to introduce more low plants into the scene (not that I think this improves it!) in an attempt to cottage it up.