Awkward S FL patio garden site

My boyfriend wants to landscape his side yard patio garden and has asked for my help. I love to garden but I've never planted a project from scratch before, so I'm feeling a bit intimidated by the task.

The site is compact and has a huge storm grate to try to disguise.

I photoshopped the planting plan to try to help him visualize it. I figure that crotons and green island fiscus are fairly bullet proof and low maintenance. The small accent tree in the center of each bed is included to add height and interest - but I'm open to alternative suggestions other than Tibouchina. I chose that tree because it can be kept pruned to 10'-12'.

Also open to ideas on ground cover around the base of the tree. I suggested wart ferns for texture, but I'm sure there's a better option.

The main goal is to find plants that will be low maintenance and not overwhelm the area when they reach maturity.

Any feedback or suggestions much appreciated.

macromary, if the home is at Boca del Mar which you listed on your profile this would be a coastal environment in hardiness zone 10b with 58 inches rainfall per year which is a lot. The location seems like a shady area because the patio is flanked by a wall on one side and a row of shrubs on the other side. I recommend doing a sun/shade record by making a simple line drawing of the patio, copying the image 15 times and on a day that you are home all day look out the window and see where the shade is every hour and mark it on one sheet, so at the end of the day you have 15 drawings and you can add how many hours of sun there are in each area. For example, if the left side is sunny on 6 sheets of paper then that area gets 6 hours of sun per day.

Knowing how much sun an area gets is absolutely essential fir selecting plants. As for pea gravel consider that the wind does disperse it which could require sweeping the patio on windy days. Also gravel mixed with soil often isn't the best growing medium and it's difficult to get rocks out of the earth if you decide to plant there or if the gravel is swooshed into the planting area by the wind. Bordering the area with big stable rocks would be a great solution.

The Tibouchina you selected is a nice shrub, however it does require full sun. Coral Berry likes bright light but usually indirect light. It grows well in Florida and has summer blooms and winter berries. For smaller plantings begonias are an option, perhaps Escargot, Fireworks, Green & Gold, and River Nile would be good options because they do well in zones 10-11.

DoGooder

Pea gravel will not stay on top of concrete.
Suggest you
a) paint/stain it.
b) grow low spreading plants that will hide it.

"Postage stamp" lawn will die. Dog pee kills lawn. If the lawn is larger, the urine is more spread out and it will only die in spots a few inches to a foot in diameter (depends on the size of the dog).
Suggest synthetic lawn, most companies carry something with 'K-9' in the name, or 'Pet Turf'. These have enzymes incorporated that will help dissolve the urine.
And it will not need to be mowed.

What is 'Wort Fern'? Got a botanical name?

Other plants that will grow to about 10', or a bit larger. High enough to be a tree, not overwhelming:
Mid-sized Crape Myrtles (Lagerstroemia indica and hybrids)
Rhaphiolepis 'Majestic Beauty'
New Zealand Tea Tree- Leptospermum scoparium (larger varieties) or L. petersonii.
Luma apiculata
Certain varieties of Citrus (many get larger, gotta do some research here! Kumquat and Tangerine are some of the smaller ones.


I would keep it REALLY simple.
The basic idea of a small showy tree in each part and some ground cover under the tree is all I would do. No more hedge stuff. Just needs to be trimmed, and interrupts the view. Makes the place too closed in. Takes up space you don't have. It is already closed in with the 8' hedge. Enough already. No more hedges.
Might select a ground cover with flowers at a different time of year from the tree.
Fragrant ground cover: Gardenia augusta radicans.
Different look, sort of grassy, but no mowing for shade to part shade: Lirope, Ophiopogon. (Variegated, green, black, some subtle flowers)
Walk-on ground cover: Creeping Mint (Mentha requienii)

Plant choices will depend on how much sun/shade there is, and at what time of day.
North suggests that there will be almost no sun next to the house, but the main planting area is away from the house. Do as DoGooder suggests and see what time of day the sun is in different parts of the garden.

Good job on laying out the existing features!
I like the idea of containers over the drain grating, but they are high maintenance. If everything else is low maintenance perhaps you or your BF will have time to work with the containers.