This carpet bedding type design lends itself best to using annuals. True, on the minus side, you're replacing every year, but annuals bloom all season as opposed to perennials which bloom once (and not all varieties at the same time) leaving your design either splotchy or a bloomless foliage green on green for much of the time. The plant height swing is pretty wide too and will likely need several years (definitely not one season) to fill in so anyone could even remotely guess there's a pattern somewhere in there.

On the plus side, annuals tend to be inexpensive and are very largely deer resistant. You can get a lot of annuals for the price of one perennial - especially if you're not above scouting out the big box stores early in the season when their stock is fresh off the truck and not yet abused by the usual big box handling. Height and spread easily controlled by pinching or deadheading spent blooms.

I think you could do it with foliage in perennials, not with flowers. Hostas, heucheras, etc now come in so many varieties (starting to feel less like plants, but let's leave that!) that you could do blue leaves/gold leaves or purple leaves/orange leaves. Sedums might also be do-able. But hmm, deer. Maybe not so much hostas, unless with a chicken-wire cover.

KarinL

Why not something extremely simple, such as Black Mondo Grass and Dwarf Green Mondo Grass. Throw some spring blooming bulbs such as Ipheion uniflorum into the green for a little sizzle this time of year.

black mondo grass and white hosta

LOVE the idea of black Mondo grass, but I'm in zone 5 and Mondo is for zone 6 and higher. Would it work in northeastern Ohio?

The symbolism is of two different but complimentary forces, most easily and usually shown in black and white. There is no reason why, bearing in mind the the medium already demonstrates this and mostly comes in green that one side could be green and the other side green.