A local garden store or designer will certainly be able to help you. In the meantime, you can look up ideas online, but you'll need to know some basic information before anyone can help you choose specific plants. The first and most important is to know your planting zone, which is all about your location and climate. You also need to know the directional orientation of your house and the wall, and whether it is "full sun", "partial sun", or "shade". Will you be planting on both sides of the wall? You may wind up with vastly different plants if one side gets full sun and the other is in the shade. Take into consideration whatever shade is cast by the large tree, and the house itself. If you have the time, spend a day taking pictures of both sides of the wall - maybe once an hour (shadows will shift somewhat throughout the season), so you may want to do this every few weeks and keep a visual log of how the shadows move. Also, before you plant, decide if you want to paint the wall. It will be easier to paint before you plant, of course. White will reflect heat back onto plants. Climbing plants would look nice on the wall, if you're not going with a very structured garden. Ivy is an obvious choice, but there are other vines that flower beautifully, if you like that idea.

The fence will end up being a modern picket fence, We aren't sure if we should grass the two squares or plant it out, it's a nice sunny spot, but we have nosey neighbours that we are trying to make disappear, if then it becomes more private then a seated area could be really nice, Hopefully the right plants will work or we will have to go with plan B, of installing barbed wire and two wild Dobermans!

I don't think white picket really goes with your homestyle. you can keep it reasonable by only doing the side to the left. I have included some other types of fencing that might work better for you. Just to give an idea and there are even more on house. Of course, just plants are always great too. or you can start with fence til plants grow.

value to you or value when you put your house on the market? it depends on the project. yes, a well maintained driveway and tidy yard will *help* sell a property. elaborate/hard to maintain landscaping won't. many people actually will think 'wow that will take forever/cost a fortune to keep looking like that.' i think more people want easy care as their first priority, and wont pay any extra for an overdone yard. so these days, i'd go all minimalist for resale value. small grass area with automatic sprinklers in areas where expected rainfall will support it, more stone mulch and low water plants in areas that are dry. ticks are a problem and mosquitos as well, so a wildflower border needs to have a defined edge with grass/stone before sitting areas. the nice night lighting no one will ever see when you are selling your house unless its the sort that has its photos taken at night with all the lights on. we've just overhauled our pool area at our vacation home; our theory there is that we want the house to be at all times 100% ready to put up for sale when the day comes that its not fun to own any more. so that $25K won't improve the value of the home, it will keep the home saleable. and we'll get to enjoy it til then.