I am very familiar with nola and BR. I think those palms are fairly overgrown, I would trim out the bottom fronds giving you more bed space. That would also draw your eye east to west. Your bed isn't deep enough for a lot of stuff so quality is more important than quantity in your case. I would take out the shrubs, appear to be barberry. I would replace with things like daylily, Louisiana Iris, and birds of paradise if in nola for great color. You could then use sweet potato vine in the front of the bed to break up the edging. Think uptown landscaping. I would then look into a mandavellia or something with color for the area that gets to 4foot in front of the brick wall on the left. Maybe even if your feeling wily a dwarf meyer lemon or key lime that you espalier yourself in front of the brick wall on a piece of black metal garden lattice, try to find something with 3ft wide by 6ft high, I in vision it with flour de lis on the top and fresh limes or lemons in my mind. I wouldn't find a cheap piece of metal work either, it is going to be viewed everyday and thin aluminum or steel is decent but I would go out and spend 150$ on it. Any kind of climbing vine would work and if the front of the house faces south you can get away with most tropical vines. I would also kill the grass on the front entry right in front of the house # on both sides for an area to get two 2 foot high pots. That will pull your eye more to the front door and make your beds seem larger than they are. In them I would go with a 3 plant design involving spillers, fillers, and focal. Something like a grass, some bright coleus, and supertunia or echoing the sweet potato vine. If your in nola the spv will survive the winters that don't get cold, you can propagate it easily in water, and it will look good. You will have to prune the heck out of a dwarf meyer lemon to keep it espaliered in that space but the lime will work. Its about as small a space as I'd ever try an espalier but would be amazingly cool and great conversation piece, not to mention the fresh fruit. I am in town some if you needs some help hit me up.

I am so NOT one of these great pros who have contributed on this thread, but since I live in a somewhat similar zone (I'm East Bay/Oakland hills so similar to much of the SoBay), I thought it might help the OP if they could see what a couple of the plants suggested look like on a retaining wall. There is one plant I didn't see, but I think might do well in this situation - aptenia "Red Apple" evergreen groundcover. It's rightly listed as invasive, but I have found that although it will spread "out", it vastly prefers going "down" due to the weight - once those stems get long, they're heavy and it pulls the plant to trail down. I have been surprised to find it does not root as readily along the stem as one would think (based on its invasive designation). Easy to keep under control with minimal pruning, very easy to remove. I have aptenia in two spots and in the location that isn't shown, it goes happily down a wall as far as it's got room, but only needs to be pruned back maybe twice a year on the flat side. It is much prettier than ivy and needs almost no summer water (like 1 gall per month in summer). Note that the cute red flowers attracts bees; some people find this a disadvantage. Me, I'm all for anything that keeps bees alive and happy, so this doesn't bother us. My wall is smaller, but the lantana shown (both white and purple) are in a very narrow planter box. Due to its lightweight stems, lantana is as prone to go "outwards" as it is "down". It is easy to prune - stems are brittle so they just break off. Because even trailing lantana mounds, it tends to die underneath. I have found this to be mildly annoying as a clean-up task every year: dusty and messy, LOL. Anyway, retaining wall 2001: Retaining wall plants 2004 (they don't look any different now, since I keep them pruned to stay off the driveway). LH side is the aptenia - a single stem can easily get to 5' or more. The purple lantana is in the middle, with the white lantana to its right. Both of these would easily reach the middle of the driveway if I didn't keep them cut back. I have to agree with the negative on clematis. It's a 1 month flower wonder in the Bay Area, and butt-ugly six months out of the year. I planted one and will never bother again. Hardenbergia 'Happy Wanderer' is gorgeous - two full months of purple racemes. But I did find the evergreen leaves a rather dull dark green the rest of the year. This is a big, heavy, aggressive vine. I had to take mine out because it started to travel over the fence and the neighbor hated it. It was a pretty little thing at 2 years old.... ...but only a year later, see that "hump" in the back? The hardenbergia was almost half as big in her yard as it was in mine, smothering her Bird of Paradise and euonymus shrubs: If you don't mind regular watering, there's nothing more fun than passiflower - after a few years you'll have Gulf Fritillary butterflies dancing in the sun for 6-7 months. It needs a grid of some sort, though, it needs something to hold onto to go sideways. I have both the coral and the standard purple passifloras. The GF prefers the purple very slightly over the coral, but I think the coral is much more gorgeous. This is a big vine (estimates up to 30'; I keep mine around 15') but it is very tough. I almost killed it when the planter box it's in didn't get watered while we were away on a trip. A heat spell hit and the passiflora shriveled down to a single stem of tiny leaves. It's recovered completely and is back to its big bully role once again. There's a lot of dead undergrowth to the passifloras over time, but not as bad as the lantana. There is one other evergreen vine I use but I wouldn't recommend it - Solanum jasminoides. Carefree and needs little water, but it gets super thick/dense very quickly and really requires heavy-duty cutting back once a year or it goes out of control. In the right location, however, it definitely fills a need. This is what S. jasminoides looks like less than 7 months after being cut back to a 1" height. Fair amount of dead-leaf litter underneath. This one lives entirely on runoff going underneath the house. I never water it at all: The flowers are beautiful, though, and it flowers almost continuously: I have the star jasmine groundcover in my furthest back yard area. It twines with big thick stems like ivy does, and with its mounding growth is, like ivy, a roof rat palace. Doesn't take much water, smells wonderful, prefers bright shade but I've had it in partial sun conditions where it did very well. Anyway, hope the visuals help.

Aggie, the journey can indeed be frustrating and paved with failures. but each failure is a learning experience. What people with experience can do is help you identify the lesson, and maybe also help you to differentiate the possible from the impossible, but don't let anyone rob you of the journey or of giving it a try. At the risk of repeating myself, you are asking a lot of yourself to get both your foundation planting and your flower gardening out of one spot. If colour and seasonal variation are really important things for you, I really would suggest you consider adding a bed somewhere to give yourself more opportunity in better growing conditions - and that is tough to do nicely if you don't make a new bed out of the same stone. But maybe you can do that. The other thing that is a bit uphill for you is that you can only get so much uniqueness when your plantings are in the same PLACE as everyone else's. I suspect in your old neighbourhood, there was variety in WHERE in the yard people put their plants, as well as variety in what plants they had. If I drive through the neighbourhood, everyone's plants are probably at the foundation, and if only the details vary, the overall impression is still very similar. So your bed at the foundation is working against your desire to do something original on two counts. But it can be done... if you haven't already asked in the conifers forum, ask there for some suggestions for specialty conifers that would do well in these conditions. You do need evergreen plants - the bones, so to speak - and they can be broadleaf or needled evergreens. If you want a lot of variety in your flowering plants, you might enjoy having repeats of some interesting evergreens... I keep thinking of Chamaecyparis 'Wissel's Saguaro' but that might just be because I like it a lot. No idea if it works in your conditions. Even boxwoods would look good as consistent, repeated forms to offset the variety. If, on the other hand, you want consistency in the flowers (all purple petunias or peach roses), then go for variety in the conifers. Who knows, you might develop a talent for topiary :-) Some of my favourite yards are amazing topiary confections. I don't have the patience or the discipline for it though. Then you can do amazing things with quite ordinary plants. Pruning makes all the difference between green blobs and interesting shapes. Broadleaf evergreens will also offer some options for you; try asking for advice at a couple of nurseries - not big box stores. I don't know if the Ilex family would work or not, but if so, Ilex 'Mariesii' is a lovely plant - varies in form, can have some fun with it. Whitecap is right that people like me from outside your area may not be much use for specific plant recommendations, but we can help with form, and process. I've linked below to a site that explains the principles of landscape design in a way that I like. It doesn't all translate to the design of a single bed, but you can maybe play with some of the ideas. Karin L Here is a link that might be useful: Principles of landscape design

I have a mudroom/laundry. office and pantry combination. No cubbies as there are no children in the home. Kitchen on one end, garage entrance on others. We have hooks just outside in garage for wet clothes and a shoe rack also. Desk side. Coat closet, desk area. Cabinets above house vases, holiday glassware, cookbooks, and one with batteries, flashlights and misc. File drawers and desk drawer. The big one on the far end holds large bag of dog food and other dog items. Not in picture but located left of coat closet is my drying closet for drying sweaters and things that don't go in the dryer. Louvered doors and there is wiring for a heater/fan combo but we didn't put it in. The heated floors seem to do the job nicely. Sink W/D side. on the far end left is floor to ceiling pantry with slideout drawers inside.Next upper cabinet holds misc kitchen gadgets that are not used to often. Other side of sink upper has detergent and other laundry needs as well as cleaning supplies. Small cabinet up above that holds some tall vases. Then comes stacked W/D with a small cabinet above that has kerosene lamps and other seldom used items. Below counter left of sink drawers with candles and other small holiday deco in top drawer, second drawer down is husbands snack drawer, 3rd drawer has some kitchen pans and other weird shaped things in it. Second set of drawers has tablecloths and placemats in top drawer, extra plastic wrap, paper towels etc in 2nd drawer, various small kitchen appliances in bottom drawer. Cleaning supplies under sink. Next top drawer and second drawer holds small household tools and other such items. Next top drawer has paper goods and misc. Two bottom drawers just misc stuff.