I would start with replacing the too narrow, too squiggly path, pulling it out from the house so you can have deep beds.

Burn the ivy. Then burn it again. Go for the third. It’s really hard to kill. And you have enough of a dark and depressing look that won’t allow green foliage plants to really look good here. Or shade plants. Except that you have shade.

To make the most of your limited budget, go to a small garden center with your photo. They can help you select plantings that work in your zone and with your lighting conditions. Grasses, for example, usually need a lot of sunlight. Try to work out a plan with the staff there to buy shrubs and plantings that are actually available and are right for your setting. Also go to gardenweb.com to post your question.

In the meantime, here are two budget friendly things you can do to quickly boost the front of your house.

--Fill those window boxes with plants that work in shady lighting conditions.

--Paint your front door.

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--Add a colorfuly planter (or an Adirondack chair) to your landing in the same color as a new painted door.

As I live in the Northeast, I do not know about plants appropriate for Alabama, but I do want to comment on the ivy. It is indeed invasive, and I would definitely have it professionally removed. Our home had it in the backyard when we bought the house many years ago. We removed it and the only reason it comes back is due to it being in our neighbor's yard. Pachysandra is also similar in that it spreads by underground runners, and will take over the yard if given enough time. We removed that from the front of the house and it hasn't come back. We now never plant anything that spreads if we can help it! And as soon as I see any evidence of either ivy or pachysandra, I yank it.

Please work out a budget plan for yourself before ripping up any more plants. Existing pachysandra on your hillside is a solution to what most homeowners think of as a problem area. If you take it out you'll need to replace it with something that is going to cost money.

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Pachysandra on a hillside:

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You need foundation plantings right now.

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One last thing: Remove the vines from your tree, which is very damaging to the tree. Otherwise, live with your sloped hill ground cover so you don't have to mow it.

In Zone 7 myself (N GA) and highly recommend aucuba bushes. They're attractive ... they keep their leaves all winter (occasionally the wind damaged leaves turn yellow and fall off) and they're low maintenance. Liriope works well for outlining sidewalks and/or driveways.

Another shrub you might consider are abelia bushes. They can be trimmed back annually or, if you're planting them away from the house somewhere you don't intend to trim it, you can let them grow. Choose the variety that keep their leaves all winter (mine do; understand not all do).

I think it's safe to assume that some type of retention wall to address the change in grade will be required to allow beds of plants and or tree to be installed.

Wow, Celerygirl. That design is the bomb! Of course, he/she has to factor in their sloped hillside, but this idea could work if the OP heads to a garden center and gets advice on what plants work in her zone and light conditions.

My suggestions aren't based on ideals, but on practical attractive suggestions for a new homeowner with a limited budget.

I wouldn't choose to barricade the entryway, hiding the walk and much of the door as in the image immediately above, which also uses some plants that aren't shade tolerant and are tightly pruned into unnatural shapes. If you have the time and the inclination, I would move the path out away from the house, take out the worst of the squiggles and make one long sweep of a curve if you don't want it straight as Laceyvail suggested. If not, plant larger plants in the areas of outward squiggles so at least they look like there is a reason for them being there. Certainly remove the ivy from the tree on a regular basis and keep it at ground level. As long as you are willing to manage the edges and keep it from climbing, it is an adequate groundcover as is pachysandra, and either will do better than grass on your shady slope. If there isn't money for a pro to do design, there isn't money for masonry walls which are expensive.

For now, I would go to a good garden center with your photo along with some observations of how much sun (if any) the space gets and see what suggestions they have for plants that will stay below the level of your windows and will be narrower than the space between the path and the house by a foot or two so plants are not smooshed against the house. Depending on amount of sun, that might include some smaller azaleas, but I don't really know plants for your area. Then plant a shade tolerant evergreen flowering ground cover beneath it or some evergreen shade tolerant perennials (Veronica Georgia Blue and hellebores are two that come to mind). Hostas in various colors and sizes will provide large leaves for contrast to whatever else you plant as long as deer aren't a problem. If deer are a problem, be sure to tell the nursery where you go for plants. Since you seem to not have a lot of garden experience, spend a bit more to get plants from an independent nursery with qualified staff to help you with design suggestions and appropriate plant choices for your situation. At this time of year, they are more likely to have the time to assist you, and fall planting is often more successful since there is adequate rain and cooling temperatures. You most likely want to get a load of compost and turn it into the bed before planting since the shrubs there previously may have depleted organic matter and nutrients. This is a task you can do now while it is still too hot to plant, working a bit at a time in early morning before it gets hot. Regardless, after planting, mulch the whole bed.

Right now, I am not sure you have room for a Japanese maple there unless you place it in the center of the yard away from the house. Perhaps removing the hedge to the left of the house and placing a J maple off that corner would work, but you would need to decide if losing the screening of the hedge would be a good exchange and also would need to choose a small enough cultivar that it wouldn't outgrow the space.

Let us know what you end up doing.

Before you do any landscaping, decide on how much time, energy and/or money you want to expend on it on an ongoing basis.

Shrubs are usually easier to maintain than flowers from bulbs and/or seeds if you can mulch and or mow around them.

For instance, If you create a retention wall, you can outline the wall at the base of it with a row or two of the same material you use for the wall itself so you can roll the wheels of a mower over it and cut the grass beside it with a mower rather than need to weed whack the grass next to the wall. Also you can have the dirt above the wall even with the top of the wall for the same reason.

I second the motion to get rid of the ivy. It is a menace.

Please listen to Babs. With all respect to the other posters, I suspect they are not gardeners.

some ideas:

There is zero point in jumping from the frying pan into the fire. If English ivy ALREADY exists and is functioning, it is probably terrible advice to recommend its removal. And if the neighbors have the same plant abutting it, then it is guaranteed awful advice, as it would result in then having to fight off their ivy from one's now different bed ... which WOULD be a nightmare that one created all of his own doing!

It is absurd to think that ivy can't be managed as we see it being managed all the time. Some people are either too ignorant or lazy to do it, so we see ivy escaping and going wild and unmanaged, too. One just needs to decide which kind of person they're going to be with their ALREADY EXISTING ivy. Since it doesn't need to have its top mowed, that's LESS work than a comparably sized lawn. It will need to be edged where it meets walks and structures, but that's THE SAME as what a grass lawn needs. The main maintenance difference is that it has the capability of climbing trees and fences. If one, once per year, severs it at the base of trees (a one-minute job per tree) it's not going to climb higher than 3'. A strip of ivy along fence and wall bottoms can be either sprayed with herbicide, or it can be manually cut (harder and more time consuming) in order to keep it from climbing those structures.

If one decided to replace the ivy, then they have the task of getting rid of it which is a burden in and of itself. It's not impossible, but it's a pain, and likely a needless one that will drag on for some time. THEN, they will still have the burden of replacing it with something else that will probably have many of the same characteristics if it is going to do an adequate job of covering the ground, accepting the light conditions and being durable. This could not seem more pointless.

Measure and plot your property on grid paper. Planting beds generally need to be at least 5' deep (at bare minimum). Then decide on size and shape of plants to fit your grid 'design'. THEN pick specific plants that fit your grid 'design'. Pick plants that are native and drought tolerant. Look at your soil (clay?) and light requirements. If you can't hire a landscape designer then educated yourself on some landscape design principles. LOTS of info online or in the library. Drive around and decide what you like in your neighborhood.

I have to admit that I have started to follow yardvaarks controversial advice by shaping my ivy rather than fighting it. I did remove flowering ivy from trees, but otherwise have trained it to behave. I do it with snippers, neatly trimming all straggling stems to a defined shape. It soon results in a kempt, almost formal, look, the way pachysandra and geranium macrorhizzum form dense defined ground covers. There are few activities in the garden that yield such instant gratification. Well maybe mowing the lawn..