I think it's basically too scrunched together and too linear. Add something taller towards the front corner and the back corner of the house. And put them several feet away from the house, like 6-7 feet. Then dig up some of your perennials that are scattered and put them in groups of three to five around your new plantings. I'm not sure from the picture where the stepping out point from your deck to the yard is, but there is no reason not to wrap that bed all the way around to that. In zone 5, a japanese maple (use a burgundy leaved one), ornamental grass--some of the variegated morning light miscanthus or zebra grass would look decorative, rose of sharon bush-or maybe even better at the front, trim or get one that's already tree-formed, or other flowering bush would work nicely. If you want something fun and unexpected, put in a hardy banana (musa basjoo) near the deck. Taller things go at corners or in between windows if they are columnar, not directly in front of windows, like lots of people do. I also like to lay out all my beds with the riding lawnmower, if you can't mow around it, it probably won't look too good later on anyway. If you use one, use it to lay out your curves of the bed so that you don't make them too sharp and hard to mow around. Cuts mowing and pushmowing time a lot! I'd say with some digging, some mulch and about three accent plants you could make a VERY nice bed out of what you already have.and not spend a lot more money Your list looks a little thin on spring/winter interest plants. So consider adding a forsythia as one of the bushes maybe, I know they get big eventually, but most people forget that they look better if instead of trimming them to a round shape to just cut them back to the ground every 4-5 years. Add some flowering bulbs such as tulips, daffodils, crocus, hyacinths for spring interest. Maybe a columbine too. You can get all the bulbs dirt cheap in the fall at a big box store. Ornamental grass will serve for a great fall/winter interest. There are larger miscanthus varieties that will serve well as a focal point, and smaller blue fescues and pennisetums that will work as smaller accents. You could also add one of the variegated red twig dogwoods for multiseason interest. They have variegated leaves in the summer, red twigs in the fall/winter. You cut them back to the ground every 4-5 years too. You could also add one of those red leaved sand cherry bushes. They can be trained into a tree or a bush easily. There is a lot of green leaves in the picture but no red ones.or throw in some red/dark leaved annuals such as a sun coleus, perilla, or alternanthera, or a nice red ornamental grass like the pennesetum rubrum. If you have a place to store them, canna bulbs will make a big impact for the summer. To help your beds survive with kids, just teach them if it has mulch, it's off limits. Worked with my five kids...but make sure they have their own areas to play and blow off steam too. Every yard with kids needs one plain old grass patch where they can run and wrestle and not get in any trouble.

Rouge,Your Tuscan Sun is beautiful and please keep us posted on how long it will continue to bloom. I can not find the original tag so not sure about the specific variety. But from the shapes of the leaves and flowers, I think they might be Tuscan sun. Recently I removed a large swing/playhouse set in the back corner of the yard. I planted 3 Abort Vitaes around the corner and 3 limelight hydrangeas along the fence, and pink double knockout roses in the front of the hydrangeans. After readint your posts, I think I am going to plant Tuscan Sun in between the roses as part of the border. Not sure if I can find Tuscan Sun in our lacal nursery. If not, I can divide the current ones next spring (hate to do this to them as I just divided the original plant last September). Thanks Vivian

It sounds like a lot of sun for a true shade plant; frankly I'm surprised the roses aren't doing better than they are, because that's as much sun as any rose ever gets in my yard! However, I have to agree with Ceterum about the hardy geranium. I would go with Jolly Bee instead of 'Rozanne', which has been tougher and a better blue color. It never stops blooming. Heucheras with bright or intense foliage - like Peach Melba or Obsidian - would make great companions. Another option would be to try more shade-tolerant roses before giving up. Polyanthas would be at the top of that list. My family and I love 'Gruss an Aachen' (essentially a floribunda), and although some people have trouble with black spot on it, this may be more related to the clone or rootstock or some other factor. It's never gotten a disease it couldn't quickly recover from in my experience with it in Minnesota, even where it got less than three hours' direct sunlight and had claustrophobic companion plantings of hostas. My original plant was probably grafted on 'Manettii' and I've grown a number from cuttings of this version; a second came from Pickering and has done very well, too.

Welcome Newbie24! Questions - How big will your planters be? How tall would you want the plants to be? If you want shrubs, there are some dwarf varieties of nandina that would tolerate afternoon sun and would have colorful foliage all year. Lowe's should have at least a couple kinds. They stay fairly small so maybe you could plant some of those or other small shrubs along the back and still have room for a few flowers in front of them that would hang down over the front of your planters. Be careful not to get shrubs that will get too big. I'll warn you, the description on the tag often fudges on the size and they actually get bigger than what it says. I have a 10 foot "dwarf" burning bush that was only supposed to get 5 feet tall and I've pruned it back a few times. That seems to be common with many dwarf shrubs.