Having planted some of all of your proposed plants for your front landscape, I would say ...

* Skip the Barberry (a pruning/spiky nightmare) - I finally tossed mine (5) years ago.

* Skip the Euonymous (it gets an unsightly scale condition) - mine are gone

* Skip the Sand Cherry/Smoke Bush (they both get pretty big ... and the Sand Cherry will sucumb to disease in a few years). Smoke Bush is really a tree.

I like what you have in your second arrangement (minus the Barberry). Wiegela also gets too big for the spot you are working with.

Junipers also get big, ... so make sure that you use the Blue Star variety (pictured in your design), ... but these will have to get enough sun,

Keep this maxim in mind ... the vast majority of shrubs will get TOO BIG, leaving you with an impossible pruning dilemma if you don't choose the right ones.

The Yew, and Dogwood shrub are the most manageable of the set that you've presented.

With that in mind, make sure that the Red-Twigged Dogwood variety is a dwarf (Ivory Halo is a good selection).

PS - I like NHBabs idea for a shepherd's hook where you can add in annual color.

Ivory Halo dogwood is a great shrub with year round interest, but is still 4’-6’ in all directions, so would pretty much fill the spot.

There are some really small Deutzia that have interesting foliage as well as Weigela that stay quite small, in the range of 18”- 2’ in all directions with either dark red or variegated foliage. I am not fond of their winter look however.

Thank you both, very much, for your detailed responses.

I think the angle I used to take the picture and my inexperience with the sketching software doesn't do justice to how much room there is in the garden bed.

We've just finished cutting out the sod and under the long window the bed extends almost 7 feet out from the foundation wall to the left. Once the bed curves around to the front, it extends about 5 feet out from the wall in all directions.

For my three foundation plants - here are some follow-up thoughts/questions:

- I think I have plenty of room for the Hicks Yew to grow and I was told to plant it about 3 feet out from the corner at the back. Does that make sense? If I have up to 7 feet, I assume there may be some room for a row of shorter stuff in the front?

- Instead of the sand cherry, I was looking at a few wiegela's to get the red/purple colour I crave. Spilled Wine seems to be a smaller variety that grows 2-3 feet tall x 2-3 feet wide, so that should fit nicely? It will be boring in winter, but we get a ton of snow so it might end up covered most of the time anyway .

- Is Ivory Halo the smallest dogwood option? I'd like to place it in front of the wiegela so the green's are separated by the red - but given the dimensions you provided it would overshadow the wiegela in time. What if I gave up winter interest and went with a spirea with white flowers? Or a deutzia with white flowers up front?

For the front row of lower stuff:

- I really love the blue star juniper so I don't want to give those up. We do get full sun all day, so they should be fine.

- what about some coral bells instead of the euonymous?

- or is there something else that is variegated that I could use in place of the euonymous between the juniper?

I don't have any experience with Deutzia, ... but Japanese Spirea is another smaller, easily prunable option.

I was going to suggest Coral Bells/Heushera ....

There is a smaller shrub dogwood, Cornus Kelseyii aka Kelsey dogwood but it isn’t variegated, just green leaves with red twigs in winter if you prune about 1/3 of the stems down low each year. Older stems don’t have much color which is why the pruning helps. It’s more like two feet.

Adding a low-key evergreen groundcover may help increase interest during the nongrowing season. I find that many of my shrubs disappear under snow, but not immediately after fall color ends. I often have 6 weeks to two months or more before I have good snow cover, and at least a month each spring, so it is nice to provide something of interest or beauty during that time. Dianthus such as Greystone or Firewitch with frosty blue-green foliage or Veronica Georgia Blue with mahogany tints to its winter foliage make a nice contrast and both have blooms in season and do well at the feet of shrubs.

I spent some time at the garden centre looking at some of the shrubs you suggested and others that the lady recommended.

Any feedback on the following?

- tiny wine ninebark, it’s nice and compact, native to my area and flowers in the spring. Seemed like a good option instead of the sand cherry or smoke bush

- tuxedo weigela, I’ve read conflicting sources about it flowering more than once a year?

- spilled wine weigela, seems to only flower once but it’s nice and compact so it may work in the space

- abbotswood potentilla, Flowers all summer apparently and is nice and compact.

I like the blue star juniper and the coral bells. They did not have any deutzia but it was a smaller garden centre so I may have more luck if I go to a bigger one.

The yew is still a go and the lady suggested I consider a green mountain boxwood to add a bit more to my winter landscape. Apparently it’s quite flexible to be pruned into a shape that fits.

In a tiny garden like yours, I wouldn’t use a potentilla which to my mind is one of the world’s most boring plants. I had some at a previous house that were free, but even with more acres than I can plant, I wouldn’t take one even free now. So many nicer plants in this world.

I honestly wouldn’t put more than a couple of deciduous plants there, and I still think you should consider enlarging it for what you want to plant in the space. No experience with the Weigelas you are considering.

IME Physocarpus ‘Tiny Wine’ is only tiny when compared to full sized ninebark or something like a smoke tree. Mine has spent three seasons in my garden and is a bit over 5’ tall and wide. It is a bit hard to see in the photo since the leaves haven't fully expanded yet, but it has a nice arching form. The obelisk is between 5.5' and 6' tall.