That is very beautiful but is some kind of trained & pruned "standard" which may require a lot of care to maintain. Also it may be bare in winter but I am not an expert.

Talk to the local garden centre for the best choice of plant that will require only a little love & care to reward you.

Go for smaller River rocks or even white/grey gravel or grey shale which would be in bags so just tip them around & spread them with your hands & wear gloves. Ask at the garden centre again for how much to get & have fun with it!

Well if that is your skill then look at the garden as part of a room, a corner that needs something to brighten it up!

If you are unsure then keep looking so that when you find something you like that will inspire you. Do you like the pots better with some symmetry?

I think they look better & somehow offer the setting a little more attitude ;)

After staring at your pics a few times I think I've figured out what's bothering me.

The garden bed sticks forward. If you need it for the size of plants in the ground it might work but if you're only going to have pots you can line the edge up with the wall of the house I think? What is the depth of the garden bed?

Colour and placement of the pots. The pots look terracotta and the brickwork looks more reddish, is that right? It doesn't look like it goes together. Maybe you can use those pots somewhere else where they aren't right beside the brickwork and get some pots for that location which are either darker and match the trims of the house or are lighter and contrast with the house more. I think the pots need to somehow relate to the windows. If that room could use some privacy or shade you could put two pots in front of the windows. If you want to preserve the view out then you could put three pots against the brickwork.

The mulch. It looks too low for the edging. (What is the edging?) The colour, like with the pots, doesn't look like it goes with the rest. I'd go black pebbles or something light in a similar hue to the stone foundation feature. Or maybe scoria?

Hi Ntjoyce2010, Because all gardens need a certain amount of tending, think about getting an automated irrigation system put in (it's easy enough to do with a little research - Youtube has heaps of videos that show you how to do it) which instantly cuts down on your "garden time", if you do go for plants pick drought tolerant and tough plants as these give you the best chance of success.

For your front yard, think about getting rid of the garden bed entirely and putting down grass to match the rest of your lawn, then put one large structural element in the middle of your front yard - then with just grass to look after you've got a classical front yard and less work. If you combine this with an irrigation system then all you need to do is feed the lawn every now and then and mow it.

I could be wrong but that looks like synthetic grass to me...?

Great so no mowing!

There are some lovely grasses around that add some colour & a softening effect & being grass plants can be very low maintenance & drought tolerant...

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There are quite a few ornamental grasses that do okay in shady areas - we had liriope (the clumping kind, not the spreading kind), lomandra and dianella in our garden in some fairly shady areas and they did very well. More to the point, they're low maintenance.

When you say you can't garden do you mean you have lost a lot of plants? Maintaining healthy plants in pots can actually be a lot more work than low maintenance plants planted directly in a garden bed such as suggested by posters above. Potted plants need to be watered more often and repotted every so often to keep the nutrient levels/prevent roots becoming pot bound. A roots from a tree placed that close to the house may become an issue if not chosen correctly so get good advice when buying - I am no expert so can't give advice as to whether the tree in pic shown would be OK. It looks like a weeping cherry or some sort of fruit so foliage would change with season. I would plant out entire bed in one type of plant (so maintenance/feeding requirements are the same) or if it is deep enough then two rows layered with taller plants at back.