My initial idea is to raise the ground up into small hills at the base of the wall and plant small and medium tall plants, and the use the raised planter area (which is 8' wide) to graduate the height of plantings. I'm trying to turn this challenge into an asset.

Any suggestions would be a big help.

I've attached a link if your interested in seeing the wall. Excuse the yard - the house was neglected before we bought it.

Look at books about Japanese gardens and gardening as well as web pages to get a more complete overview of ideas and techniques involved. In particular there was one on bookstore shelves awhile back that showed what was being done by some in Japan nowadays, Modern Japanese Gardens or something like that. This might show some layouts more like what homeowners here are likely to come up with than strictly traditional approaches remaining true to situations occurring hundreds of years ago in a distant land.