I'm hating this cleverly-disguised SPAM I see all over GW now. I report so much of these so-called pros but Houzz keeps letting them post. Thanks, Houzz! If your azaleas grow 4' H they'll also grow 4' wide, so you'll need to make the bed wider. That makes the path from driveway more curved--I'd knock off the squared corner where the little boy is. You may as well widen that bed to include the tree. No point in mowing that little strip of lawn between tree and bed. You're going to need to improve your soil to have success with your plantings, and you'll want to find plants that tolerate dry shade. I would plant the hemlock near the front right facing corner of the house instead of having it compete in the root zone of that large tree. You also need some foundation shrubs on the right side of your house.

I only spread a little bit. The seeds are extremely tiny and there are tons of them on one plume. With all the plumes I had last year I got about four plants in the same spot this year growing a good size and prolific with plumes. My son's out of town and I didn't want to pester him about flowers, but when he built his house he planted maybe 15 Celosia. That was 4 years ago and they come back prettier every year. He has a humongous flowerbed in front of his porch and quite a bit of them come up but they leave room for other plants. I guess I'll bring the Celosia in tomorrow, I really have no choice now. This afternoon a cold front with strong northerly winds came through and it blew my Coleus off the porch about 5 feet down some rock steps and the ceramic container broke. I've got her in a safe spot outside and I'll inspect and replant it in the morning and bring it indoors.

The shrubs lining the porch look to be too close. They will in their current position require pruning in a very few years and will keep the wood of the porch damp much of the time so that the porch will rot sooner. I would start by planning to move the shrubs outward in early autumn and then in front of them plant some groundcover or smaller perennials. Maintain a crisp edge, and mulch well to reduce weeds.

15' wide and how tall? What happens when the 15' width is reached, will you then be having to cut it back every year? If so you will then need to either plant something smaller growing instead or a kind that can be headed back repeatedly without being spoiled visibly. Also you are taking the automatic approach to view blocking that is often seen on this forum, that is placement of screening planting over where the unwanted view is. Instead of where you are looking from - the latter is the most efficient as the plants do not have to become nearly as big to do the job. Which brings up another recurring aspect of this subject area - how long are you willing to wait for a tree out at the entrance to reach enough size to screen as much as you would like starting today? Because you should keep in mind the effect you are going for might take many years to be produced by a new planting. Which gets us back to maybe you should do something up by the house instead. Something that would produce the desired privacy level more quickly, if not immediately. As in maybe even something built rather than planted.