Help needed redesigning my garden beds and having a move around!

[sewonandsewon]

Hi, We have almost finished the final section of our garden 'floor' and the beds now need an overhaul too. (Back story - we have slowly turned a jungle and junk yard into a family garden over the period of a few years, and I'm trying to section it into patio/lawn/gravel garden/veg garden)
First up is this bed - it's in the gravelled section which I'd like to look a little more tropical, and where we plan to eat/BBQ/socialise during the summer. This bed is under conifer trees so it's quite dry, and is south facing.
Currently there is a massive ceanothus which I think will stay put; Epimedium, euphorbia, red hot poker, acanthus, coneflower, pyracantha, crocosmia, pulmonaria, lavender and verbascum. They are in varying states of health! I plan to dig everything up and improve the soil, but would love any ideas for a better scheme that is fairly low maintenance! (I'm a plant addict and guilty of buying without planning and cramming stuff everywhere!) Thanks!

Maybe give it a good weed and tidy up for the autumn/winter and put a bit of soil improver among the stuff already there. If there is anything you really don't want then that could go now, to give the rest a bit of breathing space.

If you aren't too bothered about the pyracantha, perhaps you could hack that back fairly low down now, so that you can either take it out or prune it to keep it smaller next year.

Or how about an olive instead of the pyracantha? They are hardier than you'd expect in our climate. Or a rosemary?

Lavender hates being moved, and the best time to dig everything else up and reorganise it would be mid spring really. How about some thyme round the edge?