A couple of notes: This is a very shady area, so I need plants that do well in shade. I do not like arborvitae, junipers, or similar evergreens. And I want perennials only.

I bought three sky pencil hollies and put them in front of the fence, and they were sort of what I wanted, but I decided to plant them in the corner that's on the right side of the pictures where they work perfectly. So I don't want to plant any more. I'm now thinking of having tall camellia bushes, which of course have the added benefit of flowers. But one thing I want is to be able to keep those tall bushes cut about 2 feet wide so they don't take up the whole space -- could I do that with camellias?

In case you're curious about what's on the right, I have two encore azaleas behind those hellebores. I will be planting the hellebores right where they are, and hostas in front of them.

We have a picket fence separating the back part of our property from the front. It's about midway along our house, extending from the house to the fence along the property line. The picket fence is about 8 to 9 feet long.

In front of the picket fence, going toward the front of the house, the ground slopes sharply upward until it reaches the front corner of the house, where it becomes flat again. There are bushes at the top of the incline, so the area is essentially boxed in. The whole area measures roughly 8-9 feet by 20 feet.

So we can't access the area very easily, though I can squeeze through the bushes and clamber down the small incline to reach it. We don't need the area for anything. My husband doesn't want to use it for storage -- putting a small shed in there for the lawnmower and garden tools -- and it's shady, so I can't use it for a vegetable garden. And it can't be seen from the street.

There are two reasons I want to make it look prettier, however. It's directly outside a bedroom window, so I want there to be a nicer view, and the neighbors can see it very well.

I was thinking of planting something there that would require little or no work. Hydrangeas were one thought, since they do well in shade and bloom on their own year after year. I would plant them along the fence along the property line. There is already ivy in this little area, so I thought of keeping it trimmed between the hydrangeas and the house -- it would cover the ground and prevent erosion on the slope.

Does anyone have other ideas for this neglected, unnecessary part of our property that nevertheless needs to look better?

I read Walter Reeves' advice on grass watering here (http://www.walterreeves.com/landscaping/drought-watering-lawns/) and it recommends watering grass much less frequently than what our landscaper told us. But since our lawn is new, I assume that advice doesn't apply and we should be watering our zoysia more, until it develops good roots. Am I right?