Just finished building the house (zone 5- Michigan). We went with a
two-story side-entry garage, meaning the garage door faces the neighbors
instead of the street. So the side of the garage now faces the street. The
wall is 24' wide and the peek is about 19' above grade. There are two
double hung windows with shutters on this wall facing the street. My father
in law has built us a pair of window boxes for these windows that will also
need to be incorporated into the planting scheme. A sidewalk leads from the
driveway, near the garage door (which faces the neighbors) wraps along side
the garage, then goes past our dining room windows, then curves towards the
front porch entry. There is a 6' wide planting bed between the sidewalk and
the garage, then it flares out in front of the dininng room windows before
ending back at the sidewalk as it curves towards the front porch.

We need planting ideas for this bed between the sidewalk and the
garage/house. The bed between the sidewalk and garage is 6' wide by about
28' long, which butts up to the bed in front of the dining room windows with
is about 10' wide by 15' deep.

Along the garage my wife was thinking about planting low-growing shrubs
under the two flower boxes, which would have several varieties of annuals,
and perhaps a perrenial or two. Perhaps something cascading down like
wisteria or a trumpet vine. Then between the two windows and on each side
of them, we would plant a taller-growing shrub, perhaps a arborvitae or
similar. Then fill in the area in front of the shrubs with a few select
perrenials and many annuals. Would this work? Any better ideas?

Please be specific with plant reccomendations wherever possible.
thanks,
Matt