I think the concept of the Japanese, probably a temple garden, can be borrowed for your front yard well enough. It would take a good eye to really knock it out of the park.

Instead of a topiary how about a Thunderhead Japanese Black Pine. https://www.monrovia.com/plant-catalog/plants/3253/thunderhead-japanese-black-pine/

And note that in your inspiration picture, the plants are off to the side as background The rocks are in the center of the whole scene.

Oh I thought it was called a topiary Haha. Yes,

that is the kind of plant I am planning to put in between the boulders.

found a small one at the local nursery.

Yes those are topiary pines. That can be done to the Thunderhead Pine as well. It just has a very cool natural growth form as well. Less trimming needed.

Topiary is usually reserved for plants that have been trimmed or pruned into distinctive shapes - spirals, animal forms, geometric shapes, etc. What is illustrated above is known as 'Niwaki' or cloud pruning and is distinctive to Asian garden styles. The intent is to "distill the essence of the tree", rather than transform it into something else.

Nevertheless the plant production industry lists conifers sheared to have balls of foliage at the ends of bare stems as "poodles". Anyway regardless of the involved terminology I hope supersibo understands that they will have to know how to and be willing to continue the shearing in order to keep their new centerpiece plant looking the same. And know how to maintain the effect while still allowing the tree to grow a little bigger each year. Because cutting all of the new growth back to where it started year after year will eventually result in deterioration.

This is what I’ve made so far. can’t believe how many hours it took just to make a frame as I had to make sure it followed the slope. Border will have bigger shiny black rocks inside and then gravel in the center. The frame will be reinforced with 1.5” edging since it is on a slope.

To the right most side is an in-ground electric box and a meter box close to it. There is a drain pipe close to these boxes where all the water from the backyard and roof drains exit out of causing pooling in the area after yesterday’s rain. I never noticed any of this before as I had plants, groundcover and mulch all over the area.

To remedy this I moved the exit of the drainage pipe closer to the street and a bit higher so all water would run off directly to the street. I will still need to put some soil to even out low spots. I’ve made some drainage holes using pvc and mortar so the inner frame wouldn’t hold water and all rainwater would flow down.

I am wondering if I should raise that meter box to be at the same level as the pavement.

Looks very good so far. I am impressed. No left over rubber liner as a weed cloth period. I'm serious.

Don't mess with the meter boxes. Not a good idea. It would be better for them to be slightly lower than the pavement so they can be covered by a thin layer of the rock or gravel that can be just raked away when Access Will Be Needed.

There are No meter boxes in a Zen garden.

It look nice so far.

Hmm, regarding covering a meter box with gravel... is that going to be a problem for the utilities company? Do they access the box regularly? Looks ugly if I don’t cover it. planning on making a fake rock cover for it but would rather just cover with gravel. It was covered with groundcover for a few years and I never even noticed it was there.

I think the only reasonable thing you could do with utility boxes is paint them as a way of coordinating them into the overall design. But not cover them in any way ... especially, the water meter. Rarely do accidents happen, but when they do they are usually unexpected and sudden. If the water needed to be shut off at the meter, and it was covered with gravel, someone is truly going to be pissed. BTW, it could be you who needed to shut the water off in a hurry. Hopefully, you have a water key and can grab it in an emergency, and know how to use it.

BTW, what you're doing, so far, looks very good.