Empty beds

A few weeks ago, I went crazy and pulled out all the flowers out of my front flower beds! Now you should know that I use the term “flowers” pretty loosely, because really it was a bunch of dead leaves.  The plants in this bed hadn’t really blossomed at all in the year and a half we’ve lived in this house. And over the past six months the leaves started turning brown and crunchy. Darn my brown thumb!  Anywho, I decided that the “flowers” had to go.  And now I’m left with this:

I’ve lived with this empty bed for a week or so now, and now I’m ready to plant.  So I need a flowering plant that is:

1. Pretty

2. Able to complement with my creamy-colored house and red front door

3. Utterly indestructible (or at least very difficult to kill)

Does anyone have any thoughts for what I should plant that might meet those criteria?  Keep in mind that I live in Southern California!