Did the designers who came out charge you for the consultations? Did you tell them you did not want a symmetrical arrangement? If they came out for free and you picked their brains, and now plan to use their ideas and do it yourself, then you should either do it yourself, or hire one of them to spend more time on a more in-depth plan that takes into account your desire for a balanced but not mirror-image plan. If you paid a nominal fee for their time, you got what you paid for, an off-the-cuff design that is not ready to go. If you need to tweak the plant selection, you'll need to pay them extra, or use the free advice you get here, which may or may not be worth more than you're paying for it. The alternative is to study and learn on your own for a while, and then choose the plants when you know enough about them and about the principles of good design to pull it off. I'll give you a hint: you can balance the plantings from one side to the other by choosing a plant or group of plants with a similar visual weight to the ones opposite. However, the fact that some of the plants you mention will lose their foliage in winter, some won't, some will flower at certain times and others won't, will also affect the design differently at different times of the year.

I took a little road trip this weekend and happened to notice a fence that made me think of your post. It took some time finding what the style was called, but I think this is similar. It is not solid on the bottom, but has a second set of pickets that are so close together, nothing from the bad neighbors could blow through. And the advantage to the open pickets is a well aimed leaf blower will clear your side of the fence and will simultaneously blow their leaves away from your fence without you having to move off your property. I completely understand not wanting to access the fence or a hedge from their side. I have neighbors like that, too. Ugh! From what I can see it's called a puppy picket. I know this is taller than what you want, but this is the idea. Another example (I don't care for the top portion of this fence, but you can see the idea of the double pickets at the bottom, with more open pickets at the top). I am linking because the pic is large and I can't seem to reduce it. Here is a link that might be useful: puppy picket This post was edited by olychick on Wed, Nov 5, 14 at 11:17

Thank you everyone. I am having trouble typing right now so I can't respond to each of you at the moment but I wanted to clarify that I am not rafor. I tried setting up a photobucket account the other night and I felt like each page just got hung and I'm not sure I ever actually set up an account. Is it always that slow? We have grayish white trim througout our house because we replaced all of the windows in our house with Anderson Woodright windows that were prepainted. I insisted on realwood mullions because I like the look of them architecturally better than the mullions inside the glass. We had to match our trim to them....DH is my painter and he will not repaint them. I will try to add more later. The keyboard on this computer is sticking and making it hard to type right now. Thanks again

The aqua color just isn't right with the counters and cherry cabs, IMO. I know the tumbled travertine backsplash was expensive, but the pinky beige color with the golden counters is off as well. I would do cream subways as others have suggested and add in aqua accents for fun. Keep your hard finishes (and paint color) neutral and play with the accents. A year from now you really might be tired of the aqua, but it will be easier and less expensive to switch out.