Help! I am not skilled in the art of landscaping and don't know what to do with our yard. We live in a cookie-cutter neighborhood and we need some serious curb appeal.

here is our home.

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One of the smaller japanese boxwoods is already dying even though its only been in for a year.

our "walkway" has been choked out by this horrid grass that I can't figure out where it came from. We have St. Augustine , but this is something else

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I tried to keep up with it but over the "winter" it just choked everything out. Even my little shrubs that I'd hoped would be appealing by now are gone. I did plant some mexican heather not realizing that it would look this bad in the winter, but I hear that if I cut it back it will return in a few weeks.

SO, I need serious help! We are looking for more green & red plants to put some color. We also want plants & shrubs that will survive thru our mini-texas winters. I'm in Austin.

Posting pictures or sending me to galleries of others curb appeal landscaping jobs will help me, but at this point i'm lost. We have ALOT of clay and we've dug up at least 6 inches and layed down at least 4 layers of mulch in the past but we can't seem to keep the weeds out of the beds.

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Thanks for any feedback & help.