Gardening tip: If your new to gardening and just don't know where to start. Find a plant that you really love to look at. Can be a rose bush, some sort of flowering tree such as plumeria, or angel trumpet plants even a hibiscus. Then surround that plant with a mix of annuals and perennials.

A bed in my yard may have hibiscus, angel trumpet, bulbs of all kinds, lantanas, coneflowers and so on. Garden for yourself and do what makes you happy, after all it will change and change and change.

Here are a few shots of last years side yard:

hibiscus bed 

roses and others