Herb Garden?

I pretty much love my house.  The inside is all organized to cater to my varying wants and needs.  My husband says the only thing in the house that's his is the couch!  And don't get me wrong, I love my little back garden and I'm really pleased with how we re-landscaped the front of the house.

There's just one thing:  herbs.  They need sun.  I don't have enough sun in the front or in the back to grow herbs. And I need them.  I HATE paying $2.50 for a little box of pitiful basil.  And since I cook a lot, I use a lot of fresh herbs.  I tried growing them in the garden at my son's house, but it's just not convenient (I'm so spoiled!)  So I had the idea of removing some plants along my driveway and putting in an herb garden.  I watched the sun yesterday and - total shade - my house gets in the way.  So I went to the other side of the house, the south side:

The driveway that you see belongs to my neighbor and good friend, Dotsie.  I checked with her and she's ok with removing some plants and grass and putting in a small herb garden, and maybe some tomatoes?  Her only request was to keep the gardenias there in the middle as they love this location.

As I said, this is a southern exposure and gets full sun.  Starting on the right side, there are two hollies, the gardenia, something I don't know, a dogwood, and what looks like a laurel.  I plan to keep the front holly, remove the next one, keep the gardenia, and remove the mystery shrub.  I may keep the laurel as it helps hide that access door to my crawlspace.  The big question:  should I remove the dogwood?  It was a volunteer, according to Dotsie, and it's really too close to the house, but it's so pretty.  And I don't think it would shade the sun-loving plants too much.  So what to do?

The resulting bed will be roughly 8 feet deep by 12 feet wide.  I'm open to suggestions regarding design and herb selection!  Please let me know what you think, either by commenting here or on Facebook.