It would be helpful to have pictures from a bit further back including shots to the left and right. That would allow everyone to see how this bed fits into the overall lanscape.

Offhand, I'd be tempted to rip everything out except the Crepe Myrtle (and I'd want to see how tall it is in scale to the house).

The liriope crowds the bed enough to reduce room below the crepe myrtle. The hollies are too tall for the space (crowd out your windows).

When in doubt, hosta!

Thanks for the advice! I definitely agree that the hollies are way too big and the crape myrtle needs to be trimmed up too! I love the look of the hollies below the windows... can they handle being hacked off that short all at once? We've been gradually reducing their size each year but we're not making much progress as you can tell. When we cut off too much the tops become bare and we weren't sure if they'd leaf out again with such a drastic cut.

The hollies will have no problem whatsoever being cut DRASTICALLY. The mistake most people make is cutting the plant at the finished height they wish it to be. What happens almost immediately after that is that the plant grows quickly to a new larger size. You must cut off several inches more than you want the finished size to be. Or, you must take it to the size you want and sheer/sculpt it with hedge trimmers every time it sprouts a new bit of growth. If you do the latter, be sure to shape the hedge properly or it will look nasty.

That's definitely the mistake we've been making. Thanks for the tip about cutting back more than the size we want. Is it ok to do this now in May in zone 6b? Seems like it would have plenty of time to recover.

People seem obsessed about performing certain landscape tasks at exactly the right times, but they should chill. There is much leeway on most of these things and if you botch it and do it at the wrong time, most of the time, a recovery is not going to be that far away. With a major pruning of these shrubs, the optimum time would be just before they leaf out with new growth in the Spring. Doesn't suit the schedule? Then anytime from the last half of winter through mid summer. Don't prune them so late in the summer that they don't have time to leaf out and harden off before cold weather arrives. Nature prunes with lightning and tornados.

You are not in my planting zone but I know there are Heuchera and Sedum with burgundy leaves. Some Hostas look yellowish. During summer you could add Coleus for reds and burgundy.

I wouldn't add anything until the shrubs in back are reduced.

I took you advice and cut back the hollies drastically... I'm wondering if I should cut them even shorter. And possible even remove one or two from each side of the tree? There are 3 on each side.

I may be repeating myself, but keep in mind that we're not working with an ideal situation. The windows are too close together to squeeze a tree in front of and between them without it seeming as if it was a wedge pounded into a crack. Nevertheless, the scene can be improved by improving the maintenance (trimming.) I would definitely remove the end shrubs. Having them exceed the wall length looks like someone didn't "cut the trim the right length." It is as if a baseboard were longer than the wall it was attached to.

You don't need to cut the hollies lower so long as you have them a little lower than the finished product, and it looks like they are. Keep in mind, since they are a plant that will grow substantially larger than the space allotted for them (the space below the windows), the only practical way to finish them is with continued shearing. Basically, you will be sculpting a hedge with hedge-trimmers and then sculpting it again every time it puts out a few inches of new growth. There are too many conditions working against you to maintain it as a natural finish hedge with a looser look. You have the option to cut the shoulders of the hedge crispy "square" or rounded. Either way looks good though each creates its distinct flavor. You'd want to coordinate this flavor throughout the foundation planting and not mix it up. Another feature of properly trimmed shrubs/hedges is that their side will slope outward so that they are widest at the bottom. They can be straight, but this neither looks as good or lets the bottom of them receive as much light. They can never be trimmed so that the bottom is narrower than the top (which is how almost everyone does it!!!) because they will lose their bottom foliage, due to it being shaded, and become bare at the bottom, as if a hedge or shrub on stilts, which is very ugly.

Without question, you must clean up the canopy of the crape myrtle by cutting off all branches and foliage which hang down below a certain line. Usually, this would be over one's head. If the foliage is hanging down below the windows (including a few inches of clearance) then the arbitrary line at which it was cut is too low. I'm not talking about cutting the crape at the top, but removing what hangs down below the red dashed line. It would look a bunch tidier and more organized to clean this up. If you are pollarding the crapes every year, a good height above grade at which to cut their tops prior to early spring, is 9'. A given situation might call for a different measurement, but 9' is a good average. After the new top grows it will hang down a little below this, leaving and 8' ceiling, which will work for most situations.

If you want to add more interest with a flowering or colored foliage perennial that is lower than the hedge, place it at the ends of the hedges/shrubs, not in front of them. Let it protrude forward of the hedges. Then fill in the foreground solid with a lower groundcover. You already have the Liriope. I'd just split that up and redistribute it over the whole area ... solid, not as a cute edging.

Thanks for all the advice yardvaark! That baseboard analogy makes really good sense. I'm dreading digging those two huge hollies out but I know it will look better. Any chance we could transplant them somewhere else or are they too big to consider that?

So you like filling in with lilirope more than just a clean mulch look? I think I'll try playing around with photo shop to see what that would look like.

This tree was lopped off straight across the top before we owned it. I'm going to research what you mean by pollarding. It is at least 25 feet tall now and is over the gutters of our two story house. My husband loves it though so no chance of removing it. I really like the way it looks in the cleaned up picture you posted above.

Digging those hollies out of that tight spot is not worth it. Just cut them off at the ground with a hand pruning saw and right away "paint" the cut surface with undiluted Round-Up/glyphosate or other herbicide so it will not regrow.

I've never used a pruning saw... do they take a lot of strength or is it more just technique? Thought I would have to dig them out or get my husband to use the chain saw.

The 10" Corona folding pruning saw cuts through wood like butter and takes neither much strength nor cleverness. Just common sense. Cut close to ground, but not in the dirt when you are getting rid of a plant. It helps to scoot a layer of soil out of the way first.

Small, burgundy and low growing. I have some of the thornless barberry in my front yard actually. I hate it but YMMV. Other options, dwarf weigela wine and roses, coral bells, lowbush blueberry (turns red in the fall).