On the top level you could grow both edible ginger and turmeric. Growing these plants will allow you to enjoy their flavours in your food from your own garden. They would also give you a background level for the whole garden. Some of the cherry tomatoes would also give you a ground cover and plenty of fruit on another tier. Checkout the lovely grevillea ground covers on the net. The bottom tier would be soft with some of the grevilleas available.

These are awesome - i think these would look great on a coffee table next to some nice coffee table books a bit like the below. Love it

The back of the house you've nailed it -- all windows in the charcoal . Do the pergoda in a similar stain , and it's done . The front though -- you say the roof is Manor Red -- it looks like a fading brown to me ? Might be the photo , but I would go redder there -- it looks in that picture that it will need doing soon ? The one area I would concentrate on though is that gable ! I'd do all the upright boards and the surrounding boards in a really crisp white , and leave the infill in primrose or beige . Subtle but it will lift it . You then have the option of leaving the windows as they are , or going all black / charcoal / monument -- the latter would look more modern , but i don't think that would be the best look for the house -- I'd leave them as they are and embrace the period .

we started with a collections of different pittosporums and some wattles arranged in clumps of three and five in three roughly parallel rows along curved mounds and then added lower growers on both sides with small casuarinas (easily grown from locally collected seed) and some deciduous trees.. our hedge was about 3-4 metres wide alongside a 300m driveway...wattles were great as they grow quickly (but don't last very long) but provide shelter while slower growers establish and it's always good to consider local varieties of trees and shrubs and our cold climate make deciduous trees a bonus for Summer shade and Autumn colour ..but if you need to grow a long hedge focus on starting with establishing the beds with good drainage, big rocks, tree trunks, rubble, old railway sleepers, a watering system and really thick mulch and use a greater number of small tube stock well looked after rather than thinking that bigger plants will fill the space quicker