Here's a take on what I'm trying to do with the garden circling the birdbath. This picture shows a tree on the right (mine is the crabapple) and one further over on the left (my redbud sits there), with a circular path ringed by plants and a feature in the middle.
I really need my outer ring plants to fill in and provide structure and definition as this shot shows. My paths aren't wide enough I know. And I need more plants, to give depth to the single file of small plants I have now.
I'd like to bring plants out under the crabapple the way this does. My birdbath sits in a pool of thyme, rather than the rock base shown here, but the idea is the same.
And here's another rougher example, an approximation, really, of what I want.
Intsead of a potted plant in the middle I have the birdbath.
But like the first photo it has a straight entrance into a circle, but the entrance is flanked with matching plants -- here they have two pots. My entrance area is much smaller of course and I'm thinking of using just two low, small plants (dwarf gauras).