Lovely front yard.
I suggest liriope which is a dark green strappy grass with what looks like a lavender flower in spring. These self reproduce and will provide a lush green foliage that softly falls to provide a green barrier without intruding on your roses or pathway.
If you want something more structured and not a box hedge, try westringea, like a coastal rosemary, again interesting but soft foliage which is easy to trim, quick growing and delicate small mauve flowers in spring. Both are affordable for mass planting.
I would use the liriope evergreen giant at the back, and introduce a paper daisy to ground cover delicate flowers suitable to a country garden estate, and then add some formality with a smaller front hedge to create your garden boundary. Doing this will compliment your symmetrical architecture and highlight a feature entry into your glorious porch.

I wouldn't plant anything else too close to the concrete as sitting outside would give you a closed in feel. Maybe go out 2 metres and plant something for privacy. You could eliminate the lawn in that area and make the veranda feel bigger by having a gravelled or paved area adjoining the concrete.

Thanks guys I will take a look at those plants mentioned. I like your idea Belinda of the gravel but mowing and pebbles might be abit of fun. May end up extending and paving. There actually use to be a 1.3 metre high buxus right up against the concrete when we first bought the place which I moved to the front of the house. Very claustrophobic.

Erigeron - Seaside Daisy. Has a lovely softening effect - especially on concrete edges- is hardy and flowers most of the year (depending on where you are)

Alyssum aka Sweet Alice is easy, has a range of colours and white, falls prettily over concrete edges, is readily available and smells like honey.

Ajuga aka bugle, makes a beautiful carpet. Like alyssum it suppresses weeds.

How about gardenias so you can enjoy the beautiful perfume with some violets in front or interspersed to soften the whole 'linear rows' effect? I also like the idea of liriopes mentioned by midesign.

First thing I'd do is move your icebergs! they will look much better staggered in the middle of each pillar not in front. they will survive this as newly planted.
next roses are deciduous so consider all year appeal.
next you need to do a planting on a height gradient. so if icebergs are the tallest, pick something half the height then a ground cover or something say 1/3 of the height then ground cover.
you seem to have a formal look. soften concrete edges and that formal harshness with not so strict plantings.

so formal structure of bed and iceberg plantings is ok. it's the rest that softens. that said I would use dichondra silver falls. rampant grower. where it touches it roots and wull have a nice tendril look.

that's it in front over the retaining wall.

also consider not too many plants as can look patchy. a swirl of colour in the bed at knee height would look great. perhaps a variegated strappy leaf plant that won't need too much help. or a climber up those pillars. mandevlia is a strong grower and comes in lovely dark leaves with brilliant red or pink. the giant version i have seen in white too with trumpet like flowers. grows well in pots. see second pic

Its hard to read suggestions by others, knowing the difficulty and high maintenance of their suggestions.
The fact that you are asking for advice suggests to me that you are a novice gardener. You have not defined a garden bed for your roses which also proves this point.
I dont like the placement of your roses at all. Your home would look better, as a novice, leaving the lawn to go up to the veranda. The lawn looks like kikuyu which is very high maintenance if you grow plants into. So remove the Icebergs.
The place to have designated garden beds is further back - where the tree is in the picture. This looks like a native to me. The house looks as though it would accommodate different garden styles I.e. formal to native. Because of the existing native I would stick with natives. But keep whatever garden you have to a minimum initially and learn from your experiences with this.
Gardening - to do it properly, takes many years of knowledge and experience to get right. So start small and keep it simple, otherwise your attempts can devalue your very attractive home.

I too would discourage you from planting creepers in the front of your home. Far better to continue the bed in front all the way to the left. Incorporate an edge between the grass and the bed to keep the grass where you want it. Then a red-brown mulch (with weed mat underneath to hold in moisture). If this is a reasonably shady side of your home hostas are easy and look lovely under roses. They are also great under trees and there are such a large variety to choose from. ie. sizes and colours. The great thing is you can divide them in future years for other areas of your garden. A few azaleas in this area would give you a lovely splash of colour and they don't mind the shade. Whites and blue/purple tones work best in shade.

If you are doing a flower-based border I would add masses of Lavender, Gaura (Rosy Jane my favourite) and white crocus for a very beautiful balance of colour and greenery, long-flowering, low enough to keep the view across the lawn, cheap, easy to maintain, would complement the white roses and also attracts butterflies and a variety of native bees.

Pansies can work as an all-round border to a rose bed - and they are very cheerful (I'd have them between the lawn and roses as well). An all purple/green border would work well with the white of the roses. (White or purple petunias would also do the trick.)

For an intermediate row, perhaps some salvia or lavender . . .

Maybe look at a lot of other photos of formal, old-style gardens for inspiration - box hedges,for example, although they are a heck of a lot of work.

Have you considered the shorter agapanthus varieties? They are tough and their water requirements are minimal. You have green leaves ( or variegated, if you choose) when the blooms have finished. You could have white or blue blooms. Google iceberg roses underplanted with agapanthus to see some images.

Timandra knows best, I believe, and has the experience to back her up.

My comment is not plant-related, however.

You have a front facade of door after door, and nowhere to go, except a narrow horizontal path.

How about some front terraces, where you can burst out of one of those front rooms onto a sunny sitting area to have your morning coffee with a neighbor. Why not leave some doors open or change to glass, so the front terrace becomes an outdoor room, and extention of the interior space.

How about a pedestrian walk out to the street, or over to the pictured tree, evergreen and plant bed, where you could have a shady terrace.

Enjoy the outdoors, don't let your family become nature-deprived, with all the electronics that occupy our kids lives these days. Get them unplugged and outside - you too!

You have a wonderful opportunity to achieve great things. Analyze first, then plan.

Hi madmaxr123,

Do you have any update on your garden we can see? It would be wonderful to see if you have made changes!

Personally I think the standard iceberg roses will never cut the mustard! They rarely live up to the gorgeous, full leafed and massive flower look in the adverts. Sorry!

A warning about Liriope: it can cause allergic reaction in dogs.

This thread is 2 yrs old..

Hi guys yes i ended up keeping the icebergs and they are flowering beautifully. Currently they are cut back for winter so will look for a photo. I ended up planting a white bougainvillea on the left and right far sides. One snapped off in a storm so having to start from scratch again on one side.

Some pics

Last Christmas

A before and after comparison

Icebergs on the new paint work really well