Your question is very broad so it is difficult to answer with much detail. Care of plants and ease of growing has an awful lot to do with site conditions in addition to the choice of plants themselves. What we don't know is the light conditions (sun, shade or a combination), soil quality and drainage and what exactly you consider "easy to take care of".

With all these unknowns it's hard to be very specific, but there is a hierarchy of care/maintenance associated with various plants. In general, trees require less maintenance than shrubs, shrubs less maintenance than perennials and perennials less than annuals. And evergreens, either coniferous or broadleaved, tend to have fewer maintenance requirements than deciduous.

You might be best served by a visit to a good garden center or nursery close by. Ask for help in choosing plants that are disease resistant or not prone to insect problems and that are fully hardy for your zone without requiring winter protection. Site them in the correct amount of light according to their requirements and water carefully for the first season or two.

As you get more accomplished in your gardening skills, you can expand your palette to include more adventurous plants. For now, I'd stick to some tried and true shrubs - lilacs, forsythia, boxwood or hollies, ornamental grasses (very easy to grow and very low maintenance) groundcovers and some heavy duty perennials like hostas or daylilies. And annuals are very easy to grow but they do require frequent maintenance - deadheading to prolong blooming, more frequent fertilization and dilligence in watering. And they will need to be replaced seasonally.

I'd also suggest investing in a couple of generalized gardening books. Home Depot and Lowe's typically have a broad selection of gardening how-to books published by Ortho, Rodale, Better Homes and Gardens or Sunset. They will help you answer some of those basic questions and give your tips on planting, soil amending, etc. - even designing.

gardengal,
I was trying to make my post short and did not realize I should include all that. The front of my house is west facing, sun from 1pm on. We built a bed there with a dry stream behind to help with rain run off from our porch. I have included a pic below. I put down a layer of rocks, covered them with native soil then weed paper and covered it with a mixture of our native soil and top soil. I was planning on planting in it then. But I ran out of time. Basically I am looking for perennials that are hard to kill. I planted dwarf alberta spruces along the other side of the porch but we decided it would not look right on that side. Thank you for your suggestions. I will look into the books as well.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:1061704}}

hard to kill?

Bee balm. or bergamot as us old timers call it. smells good, attracts butterflies and hummingbirds as well as bees (and it seems to sedate the bees, making them all as slow as bumbles)

woodland phlox. fairy wands of pale lilac flowers in april, and the rest of the year, it's a calm little groundcover.

plenty of hostas will do fine in half sun, and they make good 'anchor' plants for a garden.

as a backdrop, old fashioned lillies are hard to beat- they do need staking (8 flower head in bloom at the same time on the top of a 6 foot stalk is a LOT of weight) but are easy to grow, spread naturally, and look terriffic.

there are even some ferns that will take a western exposure- the ostrich ferns around here can take nearly full summer sun, actually :)

Well....before you plant anything, pull up that weed paper. In time it will clog with silt and prevent drainage and you will have a mess.....for sure you will never be able to grow lilies in soil over rock which is covered with landscaping fabric.
And you will be surprised at how plants take care of the water run off.
If presented with that lovely empty space to plant ( without that weed paper!) I would plant about 3 dozen daffodils for spring color, plant several varieties of daylily ( please....no orange ditch lilys!)....a pink peony in the back nearest the walk, and lamium across the front of all the beds.
Why all the rock?....The rock under the soil in the beds is going to make it hard to grow anything but high maintainance annuals.....depending on how much soil is over the rock.
But with that paper under the rock....water will just drain through the soil, through the rock and run down the landscape fabris like through a stream....no chance to soak in until it gets to the bottom of the raised beds.
Granted it will take a couple of years for the weed paper to silt in....but after that you will just have a stream.
You need to plant things who's roots will go down beyone the rock and paper and hold the soil.
Linda C

Chinacat, I looked up pictures of each of your suggestions and they are very lovely. I think I may stay away from the bees balm since I am allergic to bee stings. The woodland phylox looks amazing. I will have to check in to those. Thank you for your suggestions.

Linda,
I put a thin layer of rock in the bottom of the beds (about 10 inches down) because the soil there becomes puddles and I was told that I needed to aid in the drainage. As for the weed paper, I thought when I dug the hole to plant in I would be cutting through the weed paper too so they could root deeper. I can remove the weed paper easily. I looked up all of your plant suggestions and they look wonderful. I love both daffodils and daylilies very much but had no luck growing them in my old yard. I will be VERY willing to trying again here.

Question at this point then - once I dig up all the weeds and the weed paper, do I think mix topsoil in with the native soil then dig the holes to plant? And once planted do I cover the rest of the area with mulch? I was concerned about using mulch with plants because I was always afraid they would never bloom again because they were not receiving enough sunlight the next season.

Thank you all so much for your suggestions. I am going to start looking at all the different varieties and put together some sort of plan. My hope is to be digging by next week.

Mulch is your friend- it keeps the soil cool, reduces weeds (some) and helps retain moisure. Just don't cover the crowns of perennials, or let it touch the stems of shrubs, and you will be fine.

News paper will kill the weeds and eventually decompose and not do the bad things that weed paper does.....
I would pull the weed paper....and smother the weerds with newspaper....put the topsoil or whatever back....plant and mulch well with fine pine bark....which will decompose rapidly and amend your soil.
Linda C

Thank You Creatrix and Linda. I will start working next week.

I'll list some plants here that are drought resistant because I find that beginning gardeners have the most trouble remembering to water on hot summer days.

- Daylily (Hemerocallus) is great in sun and partial sun. It is drought resistant and comes in many colors. It also spreads so you can divide it and plant more of it about every 2 years.

- Sedum. My sedum never seems to wilt. I think the thick leaves store water so it does great during the hot summer months. Flowers in the fall.

- Morning glories. They don't grow much at all unless the temps are 85F. Then they grow FAST. Needs a fence or tall trellis (the higher the better) to wind around. Annual.

- Sunflowers. Easy to grow from seed. These LOVE hot weather but will need to be watered if the temps hit 85F. They grow lots in hot weather (over 80F) and not much if it's cooler than that. May need to be staked or tied to a fence. Tend to be 6' tall or taller. Needs LOTS of sun or it will be short. Annual.

- Sage. Smells nice, nice flowers, drought resistant.

- Snapdragon. Not a true perennial but self seeds for 2-4 years after you plant it.

- Wild violets. Pluck these from your lawn and they will bloom as long as temps are less than 80F. They are already acclimated to your region.

- Four o'clocks are non-hardy perennials if you pull up the taproot and don't let it get below 40F during the winter. They get big and often tip over, they will need to be staked. But they produce blooms all summer, once they start. And seeds are large and easy to harvest, plant next year, or trade.

- Primrose.

- Jacob's ladder. This will spread via seed very rapidly, but easy to grow.

My best advice: water all plants if temperatures reach 80F that day.

I have a west-facing front yard with a bed planted with different varieties of 18" high yellow daylilies and flower carpet roses ( the pink and the red varieties I purchased at Lowe's in the spring) that are doing extremely well. I planted daffodils among the daylilies, which cover the daffodil foliage when they are thru blooming. There is a row of cushion mums in the front that present a neat, tidy appearance & give fall color.
I would suggest searching out a local daylily grower/seller and visit their garden around July. You won't believe how exotic and gorgeous many of these are -huge blooms, double blooms, rich colors, etc.You won't find these kind of daylilies at the run-of-the-mill places! They are extremely affordable & easy to grow!!
When I first started gardening a few years ago, I was clueless about soil. This is the most important factor and bad soil can't be fixed by throwing fertilizer on it. Our yard was hard, red clay with zero topsoil(I suppose it was bulldozed off in the construction of our house)and I hate to think how many plants I killed before I found out that led to certain plant death!
Another easy way to garden is my husband's philosophy- plant flowering trees & shrubs like rhododendrons, crepe myrtles, flowering cherries, kousa dogwoods - masses of blooms once they are established without lifting a finger!

i've recently dug up my rock garden (rocks) and weeds now i want to plant a vegi garden is it ok to have some rocks still mixed in with the dirt? or do i have to remove them all?

Is that "weed paper" one of the ones guaranteeed to be biodegrable? If so, you can leave it on the soil without concern. A few years ago I used one (made of corn starch) and it truly did break down. However, looking on the 'net just now, I couldn't find it, but I did find a similar [linked] which appears to simply be pressed paper. IMO, your own old newspapers will do the same, without charge.

Nadine68 ~ you'd get a better answer if you had started a new thread instead of adding to this one. However, the quick answer to your question is that it depends on the size of the rocks. Having some small rocks/gravel is not a bad thing in your soil because they do help with drainage as well as providing trace minerals. Scoop up a double-handful of soil and if there are 20 or fewer small stones, that's okay. My practice -- and YMMV- is to sift the soil through a ½" wire mesh strainer; anything that goes through can stay. Stones larger than ½" are collected and become the topping for hypertufa stepstones, and very large stones are added to a stacked rock border around a flower bed.

Here is a link that might be useful: paper weed mat