SW facing?

West.

Okay, just suggestions off the top of my head:

For low shrubs -
Mix of Nana and Schillings Dwarf Yaupon Hollies. Nanas are female and get slightly larger than the male Schillings, but both stay below 4' and have a 'meatball' shape. If you desire red berries in fall, both will be needed. Evergreen.

Walter's Whorled Class Viburnum. Compact growth, early spring flowers. Evergreen.

Junipers. I don't have personal experience with these aside from seeing them in landscapes, but they come in a range of growth habits from carpet-forming to low shrub to small tree. Evergreen.

I would also look at putting something taller in that open space of brick as it is a veritable heat trap. It is suggested that deciduous plants be put in places like this as they will shade the wall on summer afternoons and allow the sun to hit it during the winter. Some plants to look at -
Flowering Dogwood. Early spring flowers. Deciduous. Prefers acidic soil. So between the bricks, the sidewalk and the naturally sandy soil, might need amendments of pine bark mulch and pine straw. Deciduous.

Redbud. Early spring flowers. Pink or purple in color. Deciduous.

Firebush. The native Hamelia patens, not the dwarfed variety. Orange-red flowers from spring until frost. Technically an evergreen, but tends to die back after first frost. An attractor of the Zebra Longwing when in bloom.

Crape Myrtle - Various colors of flowers through summer. Look for named Single or multi-trunk varieties. Deciduous. Might be pushing its boundaries in Apapka, but they have some nice looking ones at the Discovery Gardens in Tavares not too far from you. They love sunshine, so if you have tall trees to the west, might not bloom as heavily.

If you just took this picture, I would guess you took the picture about 2pm? Given something like that, it looks like out of the picture, you have trees shading a lot of the area sometime in the afternoon to evening? Closer on your south side, but dies anything on the north side get shade? West side would normally be the house part of the house, but if it has trees, that can change a lot. So mainly, how many hours of direct sun are you getting on the north side, middle of the hide, and south end? Also, is that variegated Aztec grass in the front, or a green form like Evergreen Giant? Is your planter about 4 ft wide? How much are you willing to spend on plants? And lastly, what do you think about espalier in the middle?

Sorry for all the questions, but it might be worth it. I've designed and installed more than 1400 landscapes here in middle central Florida, so I can at least give you some good ideas, depending on your budget.

You are right about the time of day, the Aztec grass (which is thriving), and the width of the bed. The house faces due west and I am dealing with a good deal of shade. Here is a picture looking south:

The trees are mostly sand live oaks with a couple of magnolia volunteers. The bushes are mostly camellias with one nandina. I keep the canopy of the oaks raised up to give the camellias enough light. This next picture is facing west toward the street:

This is the "flower bed" lying between the house and the street. A couple of large laurel oaks on the right, a couple of pine trees, and a couple of maples (the front bare one). Again I keep the canopy raised as high as I can safely do it. The front of the house gets full sun in early afternoon and then scatter shade on till dark.

This is a picture facing North across the driveway:

Mostly sand live oaks, azaleas, and camellias. I don't see this as a shade problem as even at the height of summer it only covers the driveway--which is great because that's where I park. The bare tree along with one you can barely see on the left are ginkgos. The are close to the driveway and not full of foliage. Finally, here is the bed itself.

That's a large podocarpus on the end. I do have a water line with bubblers on a timers which I will probably rework when I landscape.

My wife would like "something" in the middle to break up the expanse of brick between the windows. Right now I have only a small (you can barely see it in the picture) camellia. Healthy, but will I ever live to see it fill that space??

$$$?? I hadn't even thought about it. $500 wouldn't scare me off; $5,000 would. I'm still active and anticipate doing the work myself.

Enough info? Thanks for the help.

Great info, and since it is shadier than the picture appears, we can make this beautiful for not a whole lot of money. You need to stay with the theme and expand. Rip out everything in the planter, but hang onto the Aztec grass. For the back layer you want semi dwarf azaleas. They flower all the way starting in October and continue constantly into May. So for more than half the year, you have color. I used to love to use Red Ruffles for a dark red flower. Pink Dukes for pink, Duchess came in pink and in white, now they have white Dukes. Fashion was an orangy red, which may clash with the brick, but not only would it flower heavily during the time I mention, but sporadically all during the rest of the year. The key is going to be if you make the holes 3 times larger than the 3 gallon containers you would probably be buying, and fill them with oak leaved or extra organic that might tend to be slightly acid, with your irrigation, those things will be beautiful. Then you need to clean up the Aztec grass and take the best parts and maybe replant clusters about 1/3 the thickness they are now. Instead of constant white, space the clusters about 30 inches apart or something like that. I would put the azaleas at 30 inch centers and stagger the Aztecs in front between them. I used to make out big time because many of my customers wanted their Aztecs thinned out every 3 years and I'd do it for free because I could keep the left over material. In your case, you can use more of it in your yard. The contrast with the constant flowers in the back and the white in the front just makes the flowers pop and looks so cool from the street. The Red Ruffles look the best with the Aztec, but maybe the pinks might stand out and not blend in with the brick. I'd go on the internet and see if you can find pictures of all these flowers, and see what color you like.

The Camelias are good. They are dark green and get taller, but they only give you about 3 weeks of flowers. I think book ending the front door with a good, full flowering Camelia would be good. There are early, middle, and late flowering Camelias. I find most of the early ones can be a little thin, I'd go with some sort of double variegated flower would be nice. There again, with a little white in the flower, it will contact the brick real nice.

Alright the middle. This is where you might spend a hair bit more money. Everything we have talked about can be done for $100- $150, with the Camelia being the most expensive. Instead of getting a $15 one, get a 4 to 5 footer for about $60-$85. Anyway, what do you think about an arbor painted white? Maybe a single or I think, a double loop that is filled with trellis slats. It would look great and pop out from all that red brick in the middle. If you did a double loop about 8 foot wide, that would leave you about 2-3 feet on both sides so it doesn't crowd the windows. Now, what do you put on the lattice? Probably too much shade for planting red rose bushes? Pyracantha can be woven through the lattice and make an espalier any shape you want, and it gets covered with red berries around Christmas and the berries would contrast nicely with the white lattice. People weave certain Magnolias for espalier sometimes, but they have white flowers. If you did that, I would paint the frame white and then maybe stain the lattice lighter brown instead. If you did this, make sure to give you space between the structure and the brick so that the wall isn't getting wet, and you can work with the plants from the back if you need to trim them up.

We can tweak this, that is the first draft. You really don't want a tree in the middle because you will have trimming problems later, but you could put a trio of Standard ( trimmed into a tree form)semi dwarf azaleas, a standard Majestic Beauty Indian Hawthorne, or something else, but a white structure would give you contrast all the time.

You were doing fine till you got to the Pyracantha! It's a shrub with an attitude! No telling how much blood I shed in the 5-10 yrs I spent trying to espalier one. I think every gardener needs to grow at least one. They will make you humble and appreciate the rest of your plants. Finally you get the satisfaction of digging it up--but beware-it will fight you to the finish! I may actually loose this battle. A pyracantha is what the LOML suggested for this spot. Any other options come to mind? My first thought was confederate jasmine but it wants to take over like kudzu or potato vine. The lattice idea intrigues me however because my primary hobby is woodworking. I do have a question about the azaleas you suggested. I haven't had good luck with azaleas and have gradually been replacing them with camellias. What I don't like about azaleas: They (or a part of them) will suddenly die for no known reason; they want to be trees instead of bushes and get leggy trying; although their flowers last longer than camellias if they get blossom blight they can disappear overnight. I'm not suggesting camellias instead of azaleas. Although a large white one might be OK there in the center all the ones I have seen would eventually get too big to use all the way across. But--all the azaleas I have are the large varieties. Are the smaller ones you suggest better behaved? (I acknowledge azalea blossom blight as being in my control). By the way her is a gateway arbor I built out of heart pine.

Oh yea, semi dwarf is a whole different deal. Even if you never trim them, they only get about 30 inches tall. If you just trim off a couple inches all the way around on each plant around June once the flowers are burned out, you can keep them full and about 2' by 2' the whole time you have them. The flowers are not short time like large ones. I was not kidding, 6+ months of constant flowers. You don't see that anywhere except for roses and crepe myrtles, and people seem to have such a problem with roses. Sounds like you need to hit your azaleas with a fungicide every once in a while.

I hear you on the Pyracantha. Hea, they aren't as bad as Bougainvillea. You have to understand, my main thing is growing rare cycads. I love spiny plants. I gave you some other choices on this. What about the magnolia? They have dwarf ones that would shape real nice. This kind of thing take a bit of time, but most people who would talk on a forum like this ate better with plants than 95% of the customers I used to have. I would say at least 30% literally, would drive into their garage and go into the house and wouldn't even look at their plants. They would rely on a lawn mowing person to make the landscape look good.

That arbor is great, you do fine work. So, in this case, I was talking about a flat frame with a double loop on the top, plus whatever supports you want to make. Looks like you could do something magnificent there and give it a custom look nobody else has.

Let the digging begin!! Michael, I know you're right about the soil and I will tend to it in the process.

Who sells semi dwarf azaleas?

Rosemary makes a nice size plant. Mine are about 3 1/2 feet high. They are edible, dry able and they have lots of lavender flowers that attract bees and butterflies. They would make a nice perennial hedge. It got down to 17 this winter and they stayed green all winter long.

I'm used to getting all my plants from Plant City, the woody ornamental capital of Florida. You happen to live in the foliage capital of Florida. I never really bought that kind of thing up your way, but I do know that Jon's in Eustis carries many of the larges and semi dwarfs. I'm looking at a 2 year old Plantfinder book, that shows they have Red Ruffles, and Duc de Rohans, but people usually have more than they advertise so it didn't hurt to ask about the others. They also carry a good variety of Camelias. BTW, I see a " Little John" listed. It is also smaller, but I'd stay away, they aren't as good on flowering as the ones I mentioned.

I thought I would add a tip here. Hit these azaleas in August (two months before the flowers start) with Triple Super Phosphate (0-46-0) and they will produce almost twice as many flowers. Trimming them in June will also make them branch and increase your flowers.

Just found this page, it showed the different sizes with pictures:

http://azaleahillnursery.com/Varieties.html

Thanks plantman. I don't need any help on the camellias. I have 80 of them growing in my yard with another 30 or so seedlings or cuttings in pots. Eustis works good. We visit the Whale's Tale up there about once a week. good seafood! I'll try to post pictures as the project progresses.

I love the arch. I need some of those for my roses.