I think your colours work perfectly for a Japanese garden - the less is more approach usually works. The river needs to be winding: to create a visual journey; but I don't see you have the right rock for the "islands" There are many books on creating Japanese gardens which describe the philosophy and I will post these tomorrow as I am travelling. However here is a link that describes placement of rocks (read down to five basic stone types)http://www.helpfulgardener.com/japanese/2003/garden.htmlAlso bear in mind that as you create your river, you must have hidden elements that can only be seen as you turn a corner and the basic rule is that from any vantage point you never get to see all the rocks in one view. Hope this helpsPlease post photos.

The scale of my design is that one square = 6 inches (or 2 squares = 1 foot). For example, the bed touches the driveway at just over 3 feet from the sidewalk. You can measure out the distances on the design, then lay them out in your yard. You can see that I used 3 circles to make the design. It helps to re-do the circles on your lawn. I used a long piece of string, and drove a stick into the ground at the centre of each circle. (You'll need a helper!) On the photo below, I tell you how long the string is, and where the centre is, relative to the nearest corner. A tip - they'll never seem to quite meet up perfectly on the lawn the way they do on my photo. If the circles don't quite touch, that's fine. Just join them with a short straight line. It will look fine. But if the circles overlap, shorten the string a bit and re-do, because the curve will not look good. Some people buy spray paint to mark the line but that did not work well for me. I used a bag of small white stones from Home Depot, to make the outline. Easy to see and easy to move around. And if you don't get it all done, you can leave the stones and come back to it. In case you can't read the markings on my picture, here are the measurements: Top circle: String is 7 ft 6 inches long Centre of circle is 6 ft to the left, and 4 ft 8 inches down, from the corner of the house Middle circle: String is also 7 ft 6 inches long Centre of circle is 2 ft 6 inches to the right, and 1 foot up, from the corner of the patio stones. Bottom circle: String is 5 ft 3 inches long Centre of circle is 2 ft 4 inches to the left, and 1 foot 6 inches down, from the driveway corner. Have fun and be sure to post a picture. Let me know if you have any questions.

@emmarene- Thank you for the Rose forum link. @partim- thank you for the Rose suggestions. I have been doing Rose research for my zone, I have a list of ones I like the look of, but it's always better for people with actual experience to give me suggestions. I'm newer to gardening than some. My mom gardens so I grew up with that, but she never had roses. And I'm an amateur on roses. I just love the look of them. Don't care about the fragrance. Looking for repeat bloomers, colorful & disease resistance. I'm really drawn to the coral/rainbow varieties. I had a Joseph's coat at my old house. Very tender in this zone though. We also have a fantastic garden centre close by. They are very knowledgeable & helpful. I'm just doing early research, it helps to pass the cold snowy days.

you might put your little statues on pedestals, (or upended pots, depending on your garden's chicness scale), it would give the extra height to get a light below the level of the statue itself.