Beginner Gardening: Continuing landscaping of slope - need new ideas, please, 1 by Clementine

Clementine wrote:
I decided to start a new thread to follow up on this one:

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/918060/

As a quick reminder, I am attaching a picture of the "situation".

I am at a point now, where I can start planting, but here is what we have done:

1. turned over about a spade depth, putting the (dead) grass down,
2. cover with about an inch of coffee grounds - I got lots of them, have some good sources,
3. covered that with about another inch or two of a mixture of 1qf of top soil and 2 qf of soil conditioner, well mixed

I am now expecting a dump truck full of compost from the municipal facility, and that will give me another 3" of cover.

I want this to be as low maintenance as possible, not much pruning or cutting back of grasses, for instance.

I have thought of low junipers, for instance, but maybe someone has an idea how the vary heights a little. I thought of putting some taller shrub closer to the house in the lower third (with as little pruning as possible). Also , perhaps Andorra juniper would provide some variation.

Since the plants will still be small at this time, what would you suggest in terms of distance and staggering, i.e. not to or it's ok to line them up along the slope contour. And would you put something else in between for a while till they get bigger?

I do plan on putting smaller things along the steps, annuals mainly.

I know, these are many questions, but any question answered will put me on the path to a beautiful landscape, and I thank everybody so much for sharing their knowledge and experience.

C.