I love Japanese maples. One of my favorites!

You have a beautiful home there! I am not familiar with your horticultural zone, so can only speak generally here. My first thought for the area between the house and sidewalk is some kind of low growing creeper or ground over, especially since you will be raising it a bit - it will give the plant a chance to overhang a bit. In my zone 5 garden, creeping Jenny would be my first choice. It is totally low maintenance, looks very lush and gets bright yellows throughout the summer. It seems to do better in a bit of shade, though, so not sure if that's a good fit for you.

The area on the left (in the pic) would look good with a very deep shrub bed (low shrubs, grouped in 3 - 5 of each specimen, and 1 slightly taller specimen shrub in the mix), which would extend from the house all the way to the point where your sidewalk straightens out and leads to the house. So the line of the bed would begin just before it straightens and would follow a nice, easy arc and end a few feet to the left of the house. I hope you can visualize this - so much easier to draw than explain! Many people make the mistake of keeping their shrub and flower beds quite close to the house, and so small that they have pretty much no impact when you look at them from the street. I'll leave it to a Southerner to suggest specific plants!

Thanks, @karemore55. I think I can picture what you mean. I feel like the area on the right in the picture is just too big to do all plantings. We were thinking that we would have our grass fill in a portion then have the stone sort of meander to make a relaxed shape to that planting area. Make sense? I don't want to exactly mirror the sidewalk

Get a landscape designer and voice your ideas, get a plan and implement it over time as time and budget allows. You need to take into consideration how much sun/shade, watering requirements and how you will water, e.g., drip irrigation, by hose, lighting at night down/up lights, possible water feature and on and on. You have a blank slate, enjoy the process.

Just to make sure I got it straight, you are planning to put the stones in that area between sidewalk and house? Or did you mean the area in front of living room window? It's hard to tell how big that area between sidewalk and window is, but if you mean and grass AND shrubs there, are you sure you have enough space?

Also, I should mention a good idea for keeping any bed lower maintenance is to create a mowing strip between the bed (even if it is a raised stone bed) and the grass by laying bricks to delineate the area. This not only finishes off the look of the bed really nicely, it eliminates a lot of edging with the weed trimmer. The proper way to do this border is to dig down lower than the grass roots (minimum 6") and back fill with sand. Then use black plastic edging right at edge of grass, then lay brick on top of sand between plastic edging and bed. Otherwise you will get grass trying to grow in the shrub bed. The extra effort is really worth it!

Yes, I mean between the sidewalk and house -- the perspective of the picture makes that look a LOT smaller than it is. It is a pretty wide area and seems like it would overwhelm the house if we planted it all -- unless the front part was strictly a very low ground cover.

I am confused about the mowing strip -- where you say bricks, would I use stone there?

thanks!

Amanda, this is what I was rather awkwardly trying to describe. If the area is that big and you want to really cut back on mowing and general maintenance, you could lay landscape fabric on the entire area, then plant only the front 3' deep section with a row of smaller hybrid hydrangea or boxwood or whatever, then lay a good 3 - 4" of bark chip or other kind of mulch on the area behind the shrubs, as well as around the shrubs themselves. Mulch always looks great and sets off the green of the plants so nicely.

Also, in that back section, if it is only mulch and looking a bit bare from the front doorstep, you could put a piece of garden sculpture there - even just a very large urn - and create a nice focal point. Having something "non-living" in the landscape, such as a bird bath or obelisk, plays well off the "living" part of the garden and each visually enhances the other.

Alabama is as diversified as North Carolina -much warmer in Mobile and cooler in Huntsville, my neck of the woods. Where are you located ? Growing up there I have fond memories of the native dogwoods, pawpaw trees, mimosa ( invasive except for Chocolate Summer, a new cultivar ) , Sweet Shrub, wild roses, crape myrtles and Southern magnolia. Is your frontyard shady or sunny ? Can you make another shot of your house a little further away, with the house in the center and showing both sides ? Also, do you have deer problems ?

I am in the NW corner of Alabama. I can't get any further back since the view would be obscured by the woods. We are smack in the middle of lots and lots of trees. Yes, we will have deer. We have some dogwoods already there. The front yard gets afternoon sun. It is the sunniest part of the house. Faces northwest.

It appears that your area is a woodland type setting.A successful garden begins with good soil so if you have that red 'bama clay you're gonna need to bring in a truckload of a good garden mix ( 8 -12 inches is a good start and if you measure the space the bulk materials retailer will calculate how much you need ) . If your soil is clay you're going to need to read up on how to amend it as well as planting trees and shrubs higher than normal . Don't plant anything in clay without digging out as much as you can and adding a soil conditioner, manure and new topsoil in the planting hole . I would begin by planting Rhododendrons
( broadleaf evergreen ) that deer won't eat so that you'll have something green all year and has blooms in late Spring. Try to find a 'bama native . Also, as an understory tree the native white dogwood is unequalled. Another fine woodland native tree is the Redbud and of course also include the southern favorite, crape myrtle. Plant native perennials to fill in. Lantana is a great woody perennials that spreads and attracts butterflies. Deer don't touch it. Hollies of all sizes and shapes are another great option . Nandina, evergreen viburnums, abelia, leatherleaf mahonia are some excellent shrubs as well. If you have good well-drained soil ( and not the red 'bama clay ) plant lots of daffodils for Spring bloom. Large boulders here and there are nice as well. Below is a doodle of my concept.

Wow @sweetcaroline! Fantastic suggestions!! We have clay but since this area had been wooded so long before we built there is actually some decent soil around the trees. I am going to start planning!!

Make friends with your local independently owned garden center, amadaala. I worked for the largest one in Chicago for many years and staff are usually very helpful in selecting appropriate plants and advising you on soil, etc. Some even have designers on staff that can help and they also usually offer planting. Make sure to add a shredded or ground fine pine bark as a mulch when everything is planted. It helps retain moisture and keep down weeds. The single most important thing you can do for a newly planted landscape is to water it correctly and most people don't know how. More plants are killed by over watering than under. Clay soils hold water longer than others so check for moisture ( use the old stick and dig down a few inches ) so it doesn't need water as frequently. " Water deeply, but infrequently " is the motto that applies . An inch of rain or water is what most plants need per week and to determine how much your sprinkler is delivering ( never hand water plants except for annuals ) place a tuna can at the end of the stream and see how long it takes to get a half inch. I usually break up watering by doing it at the beginning and the end of the week - 1/2 " each watering. I have been cursed by clay my whole life - first in Alabama, then Chicago ( yes, Virginia they have clay ) and now North Carolina. They all had different colors but clay is clay and frustrating to work with.

Good luck with your gardening venture and keep us posted on your progress. Beautiful new home by the way.

What does your home look like today?

beautiful home.

Viburnums and blackberry are my suggestions for shrubs. I'm posting hoping for an update from OP :)