It appears that you have barberry and possibly cypress or juniper in the current bed and enough light/sun to support them. That means that you should have enough light/sun to support a boxwood (short) hedge without much difficulty. I would suggest you consider massing a perennial or ground cover in front of the hedge as opposed to the flowering evergreens you have sketched. This way you will not have the potential of the foreground planting getting as tall or taller than the hedge you desire.

Check with a local garden center for specific options on plants as I am Zone 5A here and you have a multitude of options that exceed my local experience. Right now I am wishing I had Yardvaark's Photoshop or Sketch-Up skills to give you a good visual :) Good luck.

Tarheel, I'm not sure why you think a hedge, even a small one, is going to be a good idea to place in front of the porch. Seems to me it will make the entrance seem much smaller and more constricted. Eventually, it will likely cover lower portions of the windows (which are a positive feature) like a barricade as they are viewed from the street. I would stick with a low groundcover there or just grass. Another possibility is to plant something that gets no more than 18" in front of each column (not connected to each other but as if each was a column base.) Most of landscape planting besides lawn would be located left of the porch, but there is no good picture to help figure out what would look good there. If you supply more pics as suggested by Emmarene, it would be helpful. (They should be well lit pics.)

In the small space right of stoop and between driveway, it would be better to place concrete instead of planting. Why separate these two floor with something to trip over?

I would consider whether that walk from the driveway is even necessary. The porch itself could be the walk to the front door, and plantings to highlight and draw to the eye to it. Make the facade of the house revealed but framed and a lovely graduated but low garden extending from porch to street. Just throwing the idea out there...

It looks like the plant closest to the downspout is getting flooded and the excess is going over the entry sidewalk and into the lawn.

That problem needs to be addressed before you go any further.

Mike

I am so so so sorry I am just now reading this! I apparently didn't get a notification there were answers!! Thank you so much for all of your guidance and knowledge! These are more photos of our porch and I tried to temporary fix the weird path between driveway and porch... My husband is deployed and I have no idea how to fix it any other way. We still have slight sunlight in the front and as you can see the back shrubs look rough. They did have mites on them and I've tried to fix that problem but I am not that concerned since those back bushes most likely will not be transplanted. The other shrubs I am thinking about transferring to my back yard where they will get more sun and possibly thrive. I still don't know what will be appealing with this porch... When you say ground cover, what would be a good example?

Dwarf mondo grass would be one example.