For You Green Thumbers

I'm plant / tree / vegetation illiterate.  Aaron bought me hanging baskets for Mother's day last year and I killed them in a matter of days.  (We just discussed this piece of our history.  He was vying that he put a lot of thought into my mother's day that year, and he very well may have, so I'm guessing he didn't know that I kill plants.  It's lucky I can keep people alive.  You'd think they'd be more difficult.  Anyway...) (Oh - and to clear the air, he did really great this year!)
I am not good with plants, and you know, I'm more than okay with that.  I don't really have a drive to be great with plants.  I don't really like messing with them.  In the event that we ever have yard enough for me to have a garden, I'll get really interested, really quick!  Talk about an amazing coupon!  That's a great bargain for food right out of your backyard! 

Anyway - this is where I need your help, you green thumby people, you.  We have this area in front of our house with these awful bushes.  They don't really do anything, and they actually look rather trashy, so we are ripping them out.  Something has to go in their places because they cover up a huge chunk of concrete foundation of our house.  (It'd look very very bare without something.)  The height of the wall up to our porch is 6 feet.  The area that will be left minus these ugly bushes is about 12x8.  So we need some suggestions as to what to put there... here is the criteria we are looking for:

• We want something that will eventually be tall enough to take up a great deal of that room, but not so big that it starts to cover our screen to our porch, so no more than 6 feet tall at largest.  
• We want something that needs little pruning.  Aaron has a piece of equipment he can edge bushes with etc, but you must understand, we need things there that are pretty low maintenance.  (I'm good at pulling off dead flowers if need be.)
• Aaron is anti evergreen anything.
• We want something that looks kind of uniform, something clean looking, not something that grows every which and a thousand other ways.  
• I need color, somehow, whether it's in flowers on the big plants that take up space, or by underplanting some kind of flowering vegetation...
• The area that these particular plants will be going will be partial sun and the sun is in the morning.
• We can definitely water if need be, but we need something that won't die if we forget a day... or four.  (I'm realllly bad at keeping plants alive.)
• Nothing thorny, please. We have two children and I have bad memories of riding my bike to the very center of a rose bush and having to sit on a towel the rest of the day while my punctures scabbed over. 
• An idea of some things we looked at and liked... New Hampshire forsynthia, hydrangeas, gerber daisys and calla lilies.  

Okay, I plan on uploading a picture tomorrow for you all to see (when it's daylight outside)... help!

-A