Hi, Dee Thought I would suggest Arborvitae, Emerald (Smargd). It is a tall, columnar evergreen that I use alot in my designs where I want tall and narrow. They will get to about 10-12 feet tall and three feet wide here. I have them at each corner and each angle of my house, and on either side of my front door. I grow them in full sun to almost total shade here and they do well. If anything, the shade makes them a bit narrower, which is fine with me. You were talking about depth of your beds. I find it easier to design the plantings first and then just make the beds a depth that will accomodate the mature size of the shrubbery. Be sure to leave a good two feet of empty space along the wall of the house for window washing and other maintenance. You mentioned purple foliage. I find it shows best, especially against a dark background when it has something chartreuse planted behind it. If you want to use alot of deciduous plants, you might want to consider doing a low edging around the beds, or part of the beds, with boxwood. This gives a parterre look, which I have really come to enjoy over the years. It can be low maintenance if you choose the right box. Go for low and SLOW growing varieties. I use alot of korean box (which may or may not be good as far north as you are) for this purpose. I only have to shear once a year. Be aware that boxwoods can have hungry roots. I root prune mine every year or two with a spade to keep them in bounds and away from other plantings. I can get one gallon boxwoods here for about $8 each. Of course, we don't grow Green Velvet and some of the other beautiful ones like it here in the south. One other thought. If you will get a pad of graph paper and a tape measure and go to the house, you can measure and draw out the area to scale. Just use one little box for one square foot. Then draw away (in pencil). When you are done, you'll know exactly how many plants you will need for the project. It's a low tech way, but it works. Being able to visualize things in your mind really helps. It sounds like you have that ability. Good luck! I am sure it will turn out beautifully.

I have a similar location for foundation planting with a roof overhang of 30 inches. We have three camellias over 50 years old that grew up above the roof. When the roof and gutters needed replacing, I cut two of the camellias down to four feet, and the other one to one foot. All have done well since, blooming every year. I also have a Daphne I keep at about four feet that blooms around Christmas and is very fragrant. We also have a fuchsia magellanica that survives the winter with some frost back, helped by the roof overhang. It recovers in the spring and blooms all summer up until the frost, feeding a lot of hummingbirds, and entertaining us. Al

Doug’s design looks great, love it. That’d be my choice! I like the curving shapes, rather than just straight lines. But anyway, here’s a couple with your existing bed, just adding a border and plants. I’m not familiar with what will grow best in your area/soil/climate/etc .... just for sizes, I used Hydrangeas and Nandinas, with Daylilies in top pic and Liriope in bottom pic. I’d decide on what you want to do, then take your base plans to an established, local nursery to get their advice on specific plantings. These are just to give a very general, basic visual idea .... ETA: I use the IScape app. I’m not a pro, clearly, but it’s helped me get an idea for new beds I’ve been doing myself. Very easy to navigate.

You might be surprised at how soon you'd discover that the shrubs have gotten away from you and become too big - so be sure to do your homework and choose varieties that are genetically smaller at maturity. Make sure to choose varieties that tolerate part shade also (observe the area to see how many hours of light it actually gets.) There are a few viburnums that keep their leaves through winter in 5b. You might check them out. I also don't really like the idea of a row of evergreens plus a row of hydrangea - that seems like a lot of mass, even though it is a wide bed. I could see scattering a couple of small hydrangea in front of the evergreens instead of a solid row. I do agree with the more natural top on the evergreens. Then I would add some plants that also keep a presence in winter, along with the hostas which will disappear in winter. Heuchera and hellebores, and even a low growing (carpet) evergreen or two, added in will be more interesting.