My suggest:remove round bed,soft direct line,add bonsai tree,azalea,rock...

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About six months ago, someone came here looking for some advice with a house just like yours with the front door hidden off to the side. Sorry that I can't give any more detail to help with a search but you could try looking for it.

That door placement is strange. You almost need to put a sign in the bed with and arrow showing where the front door is. I would probably drive up to your house and then call you from the driveway saying I couldn't figure out how to get in.

tanowicki - LOL

This house design style is what "average american life" is about - accomodating 2.5 cars first, then the friendly visitors. When we were looking for our first house, I made my #1 condition "no front facing garage"

Sorry, msrose. I also wanted to respond to your question. Again, depending on the zone characteristics and the sun exposure...
- bulb flowers in the front, as a first sign of spring;
- creeping flox in various colors?
-lavender plants since you have good drainage in that bed
Then maybe one or two shrubs that would give you some flowers at later time in the season; and/or winter display

gardenia blooms later in the season - But you want to stay with 2--3 ft.

Unfortunately, when someone parks in your driveway, they're going to get out on the left side of the car (unless there's more than one person visiting), and that exacerbates the problem, as the car is initially between the visitor and the walkway.

For the new raised bed, definitely put the shorter plants on the driveway side. Put anything tall in the right back quarter. Ideally the tall shrub (or whatever) would be colorful and eye-catching. People wouldn't be able to help looking in that direction ... and hopefully would notice the walkway on the side of the house.

Because you want people to be able to see the walkway on the side of the house, you want to keep the plantings in front of it very low.

I wonder if moving the house number to the right-hand side of the garage would make any difference?

I also wonder if it would help if you avoided having eye-catching plants on the left side of the house?

designshare - I just paid good money to put that bed in, so I won't be removing it.

Thanks, jolyrd and missingtheobvious. I like the idea of something eye-catching, so I'll have to keep that in mind when shopping for plants. I was actually hoping to make the whole bed an attention getter and didn't think about that drawing people towards the sidewalk which is a plus.
Maybe I should just keep all the plants low instead of having anything taller in there.