Beautiful garden! One thing that makes gardens look cohesive is large groupings of the same plant or the same color, rather than mixing them all together. Have a red garden, etc, or have a lily bed that's all day lilies. Large sections the same.

I agree with Sheryl. Try grouping all your plants together by color - and then by what kind of light they need. It looks like you have a nice fence in the background, so put all the tall plants next to that, then the medium sized plants in front of that and finally following up with your smallest plants near the grassline.

I'm doing a bit of the same thing. In the border I'm presently working on, all the flowers complement each other in the same color range (say Liatris mixed with Echinicea purpurea and "Babydoll" Speedwell). The only time I add a splash of another color is when it accents the larger plants - say yellow flowering Creeping Jenny to accent the yellow centers of the Echinicea.

You can also add non-flowring plants to the mix, just make sure that thier leaf color compliments the yellow in a flower here or the dark green of another plant there.

If you are still confused, I'd suggest grabbing something to drink at a local Barnes & Noble while pouring over all thier gardening books for ideas (mind your don't salivate on the pages).

Thanks for a wonderful opportunity for a displaced Peninsulan to have CA garden fantasies! I hope you're still checking this post.

I think you've got good "bones" (the fence, the lawn, the gravel bed under the tree) and I'd be tempted to go BIG with the plantings in that most prominent bed in front of the fence: a nice big clump of tall cannas, let your Brug let nice and mature and lush in there, maybe a couple Melianthus, which has nice structural foliage. And/or I think if you let what you already have grow, you may find that it will eventually look more cohesive (new gardens rarely do, in my experience). If you're moving things around frequently, they may just not get big enough to get that finished, mature look. Lots of different, small plants are what give the effect you're calling, poetically, confetti. Repetition of the same plants, as well as large groups, helps create cohesiveness and tends to look a bit more natural than lots of different types.

I personally think one can be pretty adventurous with color if you look carefully at how your colors look together. I happen to love red, chartreuse, and deep violet, for instance. Your eyes will tell you whether or not bubblegum pink petunias and rusty red marigolds work together. It's true, though, that too many different colors (which I DON'T think you have) give the effect the English, rather bluntly, call a "dog's dinner."

Have fun!!