Perhaps if you look at your outdoor spaces as outdoor rooms, it may help you personalize and organize the areas. What I see in the photo is a small front yard divided in half, and a tree placed exactly in the center of the other half, within a little square of bed. I expect you would not do that with an interior room. A visitor will be compelled to race down the hallway to the front door, and probably not even notice the tree, since it is not part of a composition, a furniture grouping. You enter your living room to a welcoming composition of a furniture grouping, lamps, pictures on the wall, drapes (I hope) on the windows. You get the idea. Would you put a post lamp in the middle of an empty room? It would tend to diminish the size of the space and it's usefulness as a space. Would you put a carpet down the center of a room? -- only if you were creating two separate scenarios of equal size. You need some on-site advisers, whether they be landscape architects or interior designers, someone or more than one who will offer their experienced suggestions for you to consider, but not immediately act upon. You need to live with your new spaces and walk through their ideas for weeks, or months, before making a decision on how to proceed. Perhaps it would help you to read the thoughts of some international designers like Bunny Williams, with her book, On Garden Style, where you will get the feeling that the views of the outside rooms from within the house are as important as the views from the street. You will want to move the maple out of its central location, remove the central path, - and the conifers scare me. You really have a very small space up front here. Take a look in the park at the size of a mature conifer. They will occupy your yard and that of your neighbor, as they develop as nature intended. They are very beautiful, a work of art, but space-consuming. You may have room in the back yard, but be careful when blocking the magnificent views from within the house. Perhaps you will provide an entrance to your outdoor room over to the right, near your property line, with the tree, the lamp post, a small chair or bench, a bed of small plants that have beauty and fragrance throughout the seasons - a space you would like to sit in yourself, perhaps have coffee with the neighbor, or the kids hang out with a pal. Then have the walk work its way over toward the entrance area - not the door, but the welcoming area before the door, slow them down to enjoy the sequence, while providing a most pleasant view of this area from within. Make the plantings permanent, with no soil or mulch to show, after two years, as the groundcover plants mature and cover the beds. Keep all the annual plants in containers, to be stored away if empty, so the views of your spaces are not distracted by an open area in the bed where the annuals have departed, or an empty pot. Consider excluding your auto from your outdoor room, your welcoming area. You don't have room for a real screen, so just a suggestion, as a small hedge or plant bed to stop the eye before it gets to the drive. Perhaps the view beyond the drive is attractive, so all you need to filter from the view is the driveway pavement itself, as the car belongs in the garage, yes? Sometimes a little perimeter fence with a gate says welcome to my special space. In your case perhaps a darker color, not the typical white, which would be a high contrast to the house and not appropriate here, grabbing all the attention. What I have offered may be of no use to you, however, the intent of my words is to provoke you to analyze first, then plan. Consider alternatives from all viewpoints before deciding how to proceed, as these spaces and plants will be a part of your life for many years. Good luck to you. Continue the process at the tortoise pace, not the hare.

Your garden may have been done by now. But here's my bit of inspiration for you. Presuming your desire to keep path is because it is the entry to your house. 1. All along the front boundary, planting a living screen/hedge edged garden bed ... Murraya Panniculata (Flowers have tropical orange blossom scent) 2. The garden bed (under window) on the left hand side of path to become your tropical oasis of planting - consider mass for extra drama and lights along pathway leading to door. 3. Other side - the right hand side pathway ... Using width of "porch/pillar"area as guide, create an edged new garden bed and plant it up to your heart'[s content with tropical style, and in front of that and up to the Murrraya Panniculata hedging pave and create a usable courtyard - with table and chairs to enjoy a breakfast, or afternoon tea - and why not include a daybed for reading pleasure? 4. Imagine the view into the garden area from inside!!

Nice @julie herbert i like how its formal without being overly formal. Here is a photo from yesterday as i was pulling out the yuccas. I just need to be able to get enough height so its visable above the hedge, or ill cut the hedge lower. It originally had a bird bath in this location but i had to remove it as it was too damaged. I think a water feature in this location and a square hedge in the other location with a chinese tallow in the center kind of like your water feature could work well. @Liz I haven't removed all of them i'll likely be keeping the ones closest to camera, just the very large weeping one was a nightmare to get around.

Your site is far too exposed for Maples. They are small trees that really need to be buffered from winds and too much sun by other plantings. They also need the soil constantly moist which will be nearly impossible on that slope. You really don't want to grow magnolias anywhere near the footings of a house. Have you seen how large a tree they are? Since you are in a temperate zone and like autumn foliage I can recommend a gingko tree. It will be right sized for your yard and give you that similar lighter than air look and autumn colour as maples but it's more hardy. Another option are silver birches. I would hedge the boundary for privacy and also to cut down winds to your garden which will dry out the grass and scorch it. With that slope you are going to need more rocks I think to prevent your topsoil from washing away in the first rain. It's really no use of us to provide you a list of random plants. What you need to do is put together a series of photo's of gardens you like the look of, then find plants to match that style. If you don't plan gardens then you end up with the ubiquitous suburban patch of grass and odd bushes look instead of a lovely garden.