I agree that there should be a permanent path to the front door. At least 4' width, maybe 5'... wider as it turns to face the porch. Concrete seems fine here. The main thing that bothers me with the street view is that the house looks to be separate... unconnected with the landscape. This is because there are no small or medium trees adjacent. Looking around the right front corner at the side, there's a blank wall space that would be good for a multi-trunk small tree (15' ht.)... set off the wall a few feet. At the front of the house, centered between the porch and driveway (but forward toward the street... maybe 20' from the house) there could be a small (30' ht.) flowering tree. Because of the windows in the background, I'd keep it single trunk configuration. Limbing up the existing trees at the street for a clearer view of the property would make things look tidier. With little vacant wall space at the front of the house, I'd keep the foundation planting as just a uniform hedge that cleared the windows with room to spare. A big patch of seasonal color at each side of the porch area would add some interst.

Nicole, Sweet olive bush is perfect for your front. You can prune them in the spring after they bloom, they take pruning beautifully. You can even make a small tree shape of it, or even a mushroom if you want. They have flowers that smell heavenly in spring and then again in fall. Then you can also plant Indian Hawthorne too! They are slow growing and rounded, beautiful evergreen foilage and white blooms in spring. Very nice evergreen that can be trimmed and shaped however you want. THey come in white and also pink. One of my favorites for evergreen and color is albelia kaleidoscope. It is gold, bright green with new growth being pink, it is in the honeysuckle family, has beautiful small white flowers right in the middle of summer. It doesnt grow super fast, and takes a good pruning if you want to shape it. I have it out front, I rounded mine, it looks gorgeous in the winter. Don't worry about diseases, worry about them when you get them. All trees and plants and shrubs will suffer from something sooner or later so go ahead and enjoy what ever you decide to plant. I don't have roses out front, I enjoy them in the back since I am out there more in the summer. I don't want to share them, so to speak. LOL

See if you can find Soil & Water dudes to talk to instead of Cooperative Extension. How old is the construction? If it is more than 5 years old, then alkaline leaching has already occurred, and you've got what you've got. My personal experience, living in a lime pocket among an assortment of lime pockets, is that most gardeners have been quite thoroughly brainwashed into thinking anything in the east has to be acidic. It just isn't so. So when confronted with an alternate reality, they come up with excuses. Concrete leaching is a classic. Older concrete doesn't leach, and the leaching doesn't travel much. I don't know how many times I've been told that I should stop liming, and then I will have 'normal' acidic soil. If you want to know how the neighbor grows camellias, go over and ask. And no, my soil doesn't fizz either, and my pH, and calcium numbers are very similar to yours.

Those numbers on plant labels are estimates of the shrub size, usually at about 10-years and can be wrong many times so take them with a grain of salt. The estimate is also a function of your climate, available minerals in your soil, available water sources, etc. So assume around 3ft since it a spreader and not a columnar/pyramidal shaped shrub. That camellia was a good choice for me too but, when I had to move it, the new location was by the highway to Squirrel Road and I -er- "lost" the plant. :o)