While the evergreens you have now are overgrown and poorly placed, you do want some evergreen plants, both as groundcover as Yardvaark illustrated and as at least part of your shrubs. Otherwise the garden will be totally naked during the months that isn’t the growing season, regardless of where you are in the Midwest. So plan for some mix of evergreens and flowering plants to give a longer season of interest.

The comments about the walkway being currently buried in foliage are on target, and you don’t want the walk hidden by your next planting, so don’t plant anything taller than a very few inches high in front of it.

Plant far enough from the porch so that as plants grow they won’t touch the house. Initially it may look sparse, but it will save you having to rip out the garden again or having to resort to extreme pruning to keep plants in check. Use a reputable site that gives plant size at aturity. Many plant tags give plant sizes at 5 years. I use the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Plantfinder.

http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/plantfinder/plantfindersearch.aspx

The porch is such a nice detail that you want it visible, so choose plants that will remain below the level of the porch floor as Yardvaark has illustrated, and do get the tree limbed up.

To get any specific suggestions, look up your USDA growing zone and let us know the nearest large city so we have some idea of your growing conditions. Also, how much sun vs. shade does the garden get and what time of day is the sun?

No suggestions without knowing where you are in the world, and which direction the house faces.

Hostas would probably work under the tree.

Go with Yardvaark's suggestion.

It looks like your tree is either an ash or a Norway maple, but the photos aren’t clear enough for me to be sure which. Can you add close ups of bark and twigs? To get the camera to focus on the twigs, place a piece of cardboard immediately behind them. If it is an ash you might want to have an arborist check it out to see if it is healthy. Emerald ash borer is an issue that is killing ash, and if it is currently healthy you may want to treat it or remove it. Don’t ignore it and hope it will be OK because when it dies and has to come down, it will ruin any plantings

Realistically, if it is a Norway maple, nothing other than a relatively aggressively growing ground cover will grow beneath it. An established maple will have completely filled the soil with roots and trying to get new perennials establsih will be an exercise in futility. I would prefer a more rounded bed under the tree, but it may not be realistic to have a perennial garden in that spot.

I took some pictures of the tree...here they are. I am not sure what kind it is and if it is infected...

I am thinking it is an ash, but without a good photo of the twigs that is a closeup, I can’t tell for sure. And if it is an ash, you can look for small D shaped holes in the bark or consult with an arborist or even take some good closeup photos to take to your local cooperative extension office.. In my area, and in many parts of the Midwest including the Chicago area, ash that aren’t treated with insecticide annually will die. It doesn’t make sense to plant a garden until you can pin down the health of the tree. Light levels and root competition will change if the tree isn’t there, to say nothing of the damage that will happen to the garden if it is planted and then the tree needs to be removed.

https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/streets/provdrs/forestry/svcs/emeral_ash_borerpestofashtrees.html