How wide a border (from fence to edge of lawn) can you manage? If you can stretch to 6-8' you can do a mixed shrub border with a few low to medium growing perennials interspersed here and there at the front. Shrubs generally require less maintenance than perennials or annuals, so factor that in to your plans as to how much time you want to devote to this.

Stones used for edging should be partially embedded in the ground but do not constitute a raised bed unless the soil behind them is a significantly higher level than the lawn.

6-8 is totally do-able. Ideally i would love a mix of low maintenance shrubs…. possibly (prob) some trees. My focus is always pollinators. Bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, etc.

Besides Butterfly bushes what other shrubs do u think would be a good fit- aesthetically as well as zone/sun requirement

Gosh, there are so many to choose from, it's hard to know where to start!! I would pick a mix of evergreen and deciduous to get structure and winter interest as well as flowers. berries, stem or foliage color. I would go to the best local nursery you can find and look through their offerings to see what you like. Rhododendrons, Mt laurel, hollies, boxwood, dwarf conifers, cherry laurel, ninebark, flowering quince, forsythia, hydrangea, clethra, rose of Sharon, smokebush, weigela, spireae, roses, lilacs, shrub dogwoods and willows and viburnums are just a few that come to mind. A couple of small trees would work well also - crabapple, Japanese maple, even a couple of the aforementioned shrubs trained as a standard.

Pick some thing that will be in flower early (forsythia? quince?) and something that will flower late. Choose something with berries or interesting seed pods or colored bark to hold winter interest. And you can use taller grasses and vines as well as shrubs and a few perennials.

Do you have deer?

The deer situation is an interesting one. On one hand it seems like there’s just as many deer as people around here. On the other- what I’ve noticed is that our property is super awkward for deer to access.

So yeah- maybe once a year I come out in the morning and find that some lucky deer must have wandered thru and feasted but deer damage has never been more than a few hostas or 1/4 the leaves of a hydrangea. Slugs and earwigs are my arch nemesis’

For a small trees list I'd add Cornus florida or C. kousa (native dogwood or kousa dogwoods), redbud, Amelanchier (serviceberry), Magnolia virginiana (sweet bay magnolia).