Garden Plant Pots

I have no idea about gardening and have recently moved into a new house. In a moment of stupidity, I ripped out all the plants in the garden beds along the sides of the driveway. I am going to rebuild the garden but have no clue as to what I should put there.

I live in Melbourne so it needs to be something that can deal with both cold and hot weather.

I don’t want flowery type stuff but more shrubs/plants.

It also needs to be relatively low maintenance.

I also don’t want to have to do much to the soil, etc - I just want to put the plants in and go with it.

Any help/ideas would be much appreciated.
Sorry, Melbourne in Australia

I know absolutely nothing about gardening, I just moved to a new house and am interested in trying to grow a few vegetables. There are some flower beds in my yard and I have noticed some of those tags lying in teh soil showing what has been planted by the people before me. Is it possible to plant vegetables there? If so, do i just go out and plant them or do I have to get the stuff that the people before me planted out? And how would I get all that out of the garden? I am very confused about what to do and could not find any help on the interent about getting rid of one garden and starting new. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks