This is not a design issue/question. Try posting in the California Gardening forum or the Gardening in Shade forum.

Ternstroemia looks good with Camellia japonica, which seems to be what you have behind. I would definitely continue the shrubs to the corner and end the bed with something (like this) that had a bigger leaf than the camellias do.

http://www.monrovia.com/plant-catalog/plants/361/le-ann-cleyera/

I would also fill the big gap between the camellias with shrubs similar to them so that the planting has more flow. I would also have the end of the bed taper over to the edge of the paving instead of being squared off. It will look better and be easier to mow.

"what could I plant" sounds like a question of plant selection - not design - to me!! Plant selection is at best only a very tertiary or incidental portion of landscape design.

FWIW, since the Landscape Design forum is the ONLY Garden Web forum that tags to the Houzz forums, we are starting to see more and more of the general plant or plant selection questions here than we have in the past, largely due to new Houzz members not being able to access the real garden forums directly or easily. It is one of the bigger complaints since the acquisition and tends to dilute this forum into areas that have little to no relevance with actual "design" issues. I count at least 8 posts on the front page of this forum that are asking about plant ID or care or what to plant that are better answered in a more topic-specific forum :-)

The alternative is to get rid of all the other GW forums and just have one massive "gardening in general" forum!! Which would be a complete disaster IMO.

I like DigDoug’s suggestion-thank you!

Can you (Dig Doug) tell me the names of these plants? They are consistent with the rest of the backyard.

Fatsia, aucuba and weigela shown in above scheme will in not that much time overwhelm the space if placed as indicated. The fatsia in particular is quite capable of filling the entire area, just by itself - and is not esp. slow growing. It will be out over the lawn (and the for some reason solitary - as in one only - variegated hosta indicated) pretty quick, will have to be chopped back rather frequently to remain as small as represented here.

Since you seldom ever bother to indicate what plants you are including in these mock ups, assumptions based on what your cut and paste vegetation looks like is all we have to go on. And based on the apparent size of the planting area, there appears to be too many large growing plants in too small an area. I'd also wonder how well a dark leaved weigela would perform in more shade than sun........weigela and fatsia or aucuba seem very strange bedfellows.

Can you comment about providing people mockups without asking them about direction of sun exposure, planting zone, etc.?

Don't get me wrong, I love your enthusiasm. But I don't understand a professional offering design suggestions without some of this information. Are you using plants with wide enough ranges that you see no need to be concerned about where the poster happens to be? Are you not too concerned about accuracy, but see the benefit of offering general design guidelines (evergreen here, tree there, etc.)?

Genuinely curious.. not meaning to be critical.

I was asking about the advice as a whole that you provide on this forum, not necessarily this specific case. And very curiously, that was not an answer but a dodge.

You haven't answered my questions about the lack of requests on your part for information from each poster that seems (at least to me) fairly important - such as where geographically they are located. Could you please go back and re-read my post two previous?

EDIT: Interesting - you went back and edited your post to make it appear as if you had already answered my question instead of posting a response with a new post. That is odd forum etiquette. So let me ask you this: why not ask that first, and make your suggestions with that information in mind?

I hope you treat your customers that have questions with significantly more respect and professionalism. Thank you for your time.

And Dig Doug went back and deleted all of his posts. What extraordinarily unpleasant conduct from a professional.

The OP asked for suggestions of shade loving shrubs in her zone. Doug gave some.

I do understand that this is not a forum for plant suggestions. Many who post here seeking help do not realize that choosing plants is not (according to many) part of design.

I get a sense of vague hostility that I do not understand.

"The OP asked for suggestions of shade loving shrubs in her zone. Doug gave some."

Actually he didn't. He did provide a mock-up of the area with a variety of shrubs illustrated......but it wasn't until Embothrium's comment that any of the plants were publicly identified.

Landscape or garden design is a much, much broader issue than just plant selection. If you were to compare landscape design to baking a cake, the plant selection portion would be like deciding what color frosting to put on it or if you needed to add chocolate curls or sprinkles. It is the very last step in the process. And plant selection for a small area planting bed - like the one in the OP's situation - requires minimal design input. Sure, there is some staging involved, but that is a far cry from actual "design". And there are literally hundreds of plants the OP could select from to fill this space. That's why a suggestion was made to ask on a more specific forum.

I get the impression from this and a few other threads that some participants do not like being challenged or asked to explain the reasoning behind their suggestions. Personally, I find explaining the thought processes behind one's choices offers more information to the OP and other posters than just offering some pretty pictures. And it gets a dialog of other opinions going, which is always beneficial. But that is just me :-)

I do think that snatching up the ball and leaving the playground when challenged is a bit childish - we are all adults here and the pros should be able to defend their positions or choices if asked........we need to do that often enough with 'real life' (as opposed to online) design issues and clients! It shouldn't be any different here.

I call the style of planting that was exemplified by the now absent scheme posted here Flower and Garden Show. I do also jam things together based on how they look at first, with less regard to long term development in my own home garden - which is to a large extent a collection anyway, with the production of lasting "restful landscape pictures' not being the top priority. (Demonstrating a similar mentality - although I would say his was much more carefully planned than mine - a late friend called his personal garden his "playpen"). And these somewhat random and often dense plantings here at my place are not proposals being made to somebody else, for use in their own situation. Somebody who very often will not be looking for what will quite soon appear overgrown to them, have therefore to be redone.