Excellent, thank you. What I was thinking, but glad to have some experts weigh in! So, when you say to trim the azaleas as a hedge, do you mean to keep the 2 the same shape and size so they are uniform? As for the left side of the house, I will post pictures later on. Essentially, I have 3 more tiers that go down to the driveway. The front of the house is south facing so I used 2 tiers to do my veggie and herb gardens. Third tier (floor level) is a perennial garden which will probably be updated with new plants in the future. Much of this is hidden by a big pine tree - I am in the process of redoing the landscape around this pine tree. We pulled up 30 years worth of non maintained creeping juniper and are going to regrade and then replant this space - with grass, myrtle and a shade perennial garden under the tree. I'll share more pictures later for additional opinions on the remainder of the space. Thanks for feedback!

Flo, I like your sketch very much (although without knowing the basic sun/wind info I mentioned above, it may or may not be what she needs.) However, the suggestion of polished black Japanese river stones for a first time home owner in Oklahoma is probably not helpful.b You will drain her budget and she will find herself looking at dusty, not shiny, stones. If she likes your concept of creating a dry bed/ river effect (as I do), you or someone else might teach her how to do this with grasses native to her area. Ones that can be easily propagated by division, require no water or weeding, and will blow in her prairie breezes while attracting birds and wildlife. Can, I urge you to google images of landscapes by Oehme, Van Sweden. They are known for using sweeps of native plants, especially grasses. My suggestion to you is to play around with flexible hoses or ropes in dividing your wide open space to see what shapes please you. Then imagine the spaces filled with different color blocks of various heights. Which ones do you want moving, which ones static? Designing a three dimension landscape from scratch like yours can be overwhelming. Break it down into digestible parts. 1) Gather all information about your conditions. 2) Get out the hoses and ropes and draw on the ground like a canvas.

Added photos that show the whole front of the house and yard would help. Stand 15 ‘ or 20’ from the front door and take one photo straight on and without moving to another spot take one or two slightly overlapping photos to the left and right so that we can see all the way from the left side of the property to the right, and up to the roof line of the house. Plantings need to be in context, so we need to see windows, doors, other plantings, etc. so it all works together and looks proportional to the building. For instance, are there trees shading this spot? Is it a one or two story house and how big is the roof overhang? What do the current shrubs look like? Since you aren’t in a desert area, an organic mulch such as shredded bark mulch or chopped leaves will work much better than stone for your mulch. Knowing the nearest big city will help as well so we can have an idea of soil pH. In my area, acid loving plants like Rhododendrons do well, but in areas with more neutral or alkaline soils, they aren’t happy.

You need a couple of trees framing the house, outside of the view shown. With the door at the far end, I'd place a landing the full length of the stoop, expanding a sense of spaciousness at the entrance.