What do you mean by better? What do you feel is lacking? How much upkeep are you willing to do?

Looks like you could use a fresh layer of wood mulch. Not sure what else till you tell us what better means.

I like them as they are. Simple. Just get rid of the wood junk under the stairs and plant some more things in the big bed so it isn't a sea of mulch.

Start with shrubs and choose ones with a variety of leaf textures and colors. It's too much solid green.

In the first bed, you have a lot of lily of the valley, which blooms in May. You could replace it with some Tiarella, which has attractive leaves and is native.

Your other bed is hard to critique. You have what looks like some dayliles, hostas and some shrubs. Spirea? Without knowing what you have and when it blooms, it's hard to advise. One thing you can do is to go to a local nursery to see what's in bloom in a season when you think you need more stuff blooming.

In my garden (just this year moved from Zone 5 to 6), I have some perennial and native Tiarella and woodland and creeping phlox blooming, as well as a bunch of bulbs: daffodils, tulips and muscari. So, if your problem is you want flowers now and you don't have any, I'd add bulbs, tiarella cordifolia and creeping phlox.

If you're dissatisfied most of the year, then you should inventory what you have, when and how long it blooms and then consider why you're unhappy. Does it all bloom at once, making your garden glorious for a few weeks and boring the rest of the time? Have trees grown, so your sun-loving plants get too much shade to flower? Do you just need to plant more stuff?

I like the beds as they are too.

Clean up under the stairs. Pull out any lily of the valley escaping below the timber ties and too close to the small tree/bush in the center. I find that lily of the valley eventually crowds out most of its neighbors but try planting some earlier-blooming spring bulbs in with them to enjoy.

If you aren’t sure what you have in the larger bed (colors, bloom time, etc.), plant some annuals in the open mulched area for color this year while you evaluate what you already have. Taking photos of the area 1-2x per month over the next year will help as you plan what to plant there.

One thing I like to do when updating my beds is to look out the windows and doors to find places to tuck in some bulbs and plants (like hellebores in my zone 7a Northeast area) that bloom in late winter and early spring so I have some pretty views from inside the house, heading out the door and coming up my driveway during the colder months before my perennials and shrubs are in bloom and I am outside to enjoy them.