This area gets partial sun and is a nice little area to lounge. This photo shows the other side of the patio space

How much is ‘partial sun’? Most herbs require a lot of light. The area does look quite shady from the picture.

Back up with the camera, stand in line with center of the house and take a panorama of the whole house front including some side surroundings. If your camera doesn't have pano feature, you can take a series of slightly overlapping pictures while pivoting but standing in one spot for all pictures.

Also, show a view taken from inside the living room, looking outward through the patio doors, so we can see what you'd be wanting privacy from.

It's pretty hard to see what you mean. To level the rocks, you might have to remove the larger ones and put some kind of pebble filler in between. Our home is built on rocky soil, so we deal with rocks all the time. I grow herbs in ground and containers outside and in. They do fine with at least 6 hours sun. Thyme, basil, oregano and even rosemary. I do parsley and cilantro and anise in early spring. They like it cooler than it is here.

Judging by the new pictures it’s too gloomy there to grow anything other than mint, parsley and perhaps chives. The Mediterranean herbs like sage, rosemary or thyme would not be happy. They like full sun.

The big shrub is a very healthy camellia. But it has been trimmed to a blob which probably inhibits blooming.

I’m not sure why you want to have a planter rather than just removing the rocks and planting your privacy screen in the ground. It would be far easier to maintain.

The angles of the photos are not the greatest because the space is small. I was thinking the planters could give the space a nice clean look but it would make sense to plant the privacy screen in the ground. Just not sure what plant would be best as I had originally thought of bamboo. The space gets about 4-6 hours of sun. The above pictures were taken at various times throughout the day. These photos were taken at 8am. Sorry I know it's hard to imagine the space from my horrible photos. The space in front of the patio has a retaining wall in front of it in which I planted some hostas.

There is no picture giving us a sense of how the house and its setting is seen from the street, or at least letting us know that that's what we're looking at. So, kind of hard to make suggestions that take house appearance into consideration.

I don't think you would want bamboo in that tight space. Even clumping bamboo can become fairly massive. And some of the shorter varieties can grow extremely dense. Does not seem like the way to go. Agree that you'd be better off growing something in the ground. Space is small and adding planters would add clutter.

From the inside, it doesn't seem like you'd want to create a screen that stops the view so close in. I don't think I'd want anything more than rib cage height for a sense of privacy, but not blocking whole view.