Backyard Landscaping Plant Selection Question/Help w/ pics

In the middle of creating our backyard from scratch and we have everything done but the landscaping. I have very little knowledge about plants outside of some of the most popular ones and I'm struggling to figure out which types of shrubs and flowers to go with.

I've looked on the LSU Ag site and various others and it seems like they have great info on the specific plant you're looking at but not a way to compare different types of plants next to each other. Is there somewhere that has some sort of "plant selector wizard" that I just haven't found yet. I found one for trees that was very helpful but nothing for other plants.

Is it worth hiring a landscape designer or horticulturalist to assist with this? Does anyone have any recommendations for one or recommendations on anything else?

The other pictures are what we were envisioning but just, not sure of the specific types of plants. Any help is very much appreciated!

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