Need to know your zone and general location. A picture would really help. There is a vast difference between landscaping the house and planting a flower garden. It sounds as if you're wanting landscaping more than a flower garden. And if so, you should probably post in the Landscaping Forum as well, with full zone, location, and a picture.

oh. I thought I sent this to the NJ Gardening forum - no? (northwest NJ) Right now the area is fully overgrown with bushes that need to come down so a photo probably won't help much, but here it is. Once done, I plan to have my clean slate. But it will be a 6' wide by 16' long area. For this project, I consider landscaping and a flower bed the same, sort of [but understand they probably are two different animals - semantics :-) ] I want to make the area in front of my house have nice curb appeal - with flowers. Other plantings are ok, but I love color/flowers and am hoping to incorporate flowers that benefit the bees, if possible. thanks!