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.

Many thanks chookchook2. This is the front of the house thus far I was thinking of lilly pilly which are trimmed round shape in big black gloss pots on either side of the entrance where the white hand rail is . I have bad allergies , hay fever etc hence j need to stick to Australian natives, hence either lilly pilly or magnolia ( teddy bear ) plants ...

Every year I buy more bulbs to pot in various combinations. I bring the best ones inside when they're at their flowering peak. Grape Hyacinths and tiny daffodils with white and red freesias are my favourites so far. I love the scent of freesias, the brightness of daffodils, and the intricacy of ranunculus. I want to plant a big oblong tub of Ranunculus this year.

The ‘fringe flower’ is fab,mine is about 1metre x 1metre and the flowers are beautiful, Same with the ‘emerald lustre ‘ I trim mine lightly and this keeps them looking great, would look wonderful amongst the trees you are thinking of planting.