Hi Pennylane – as Weeterrier quite rightly says please don’t think that any question is stupid....we learn by asking...
I have always regarded gardening a bit like interior decorating - - you have to get the eye to see what you want it to, and not necessarily to see what is there, to gloss over the “none too wonderful” bits.
I replied on my garden thread, to a question about roses that droop this….
“Thanks - well as far as "facing up " is concerned - the trend has been for quite a few years to produce big fantastic smelling, heavy headed roses - not only David Austin, of course.
In the 2nd or 3rd year you will get stronger shoots but basically if a rose has been bred to droop it will droop. I make my roses do what I want them to do in the limits that they themselves are capable of doing.
What I am trying to say is that if a bush roses looks better being grown in the corner of one of your borders at the height of 2 meters, then let it - if the result of that is bare shoots underneath - plant something to cover that bareness up.
No-one can make an upright flowering rose like a TH droop or a miniature rose become a climber but you can make a TH rose look "the part" by planting something near it that takes the stiffness away from it - something light and feathery perhaps and by planting a miniature rose in a tub and giving it height that way.
Another way to help is using hazelnuts twigs for example, bended over into a "U" shape and put into the ground so that the shoots/flowers cannot droop so much. It looks natural and helps.”
I strongly feel that no matter what you grow in your garden – shrubs, trees, roses, perennials you can always use a little “camouflage” to show a garden off to it’s best.
Just a small example…. I have a couple of roses that only really look their best if I let them grow far higher than they should – similar to your problem, if for other reasons. I decided to do some cosmetic surgery as you can see from the pics underneath.
Here is a rose that I have let grow far too high , simply because it looks great …
and as you can see it looks bad at the bottom with bare stems. So I covered them up with a tub.
It works – one things that I must perhaps explain is that I have an astilbe in a tub (think they grow better) and a rose – not perhaps the ideal combination , at first glance. However I also feel that many many perennials grow in other conditions that they are perhaps accustomed to, if we are prepared to help them, - i.e. more water etc. I suppose it is also planting things in uneven numbers – 1, 3 , 5 and not 2, 4, 6….and roses planted in 3’s and 5’s are a dream - make a plant do what you want it to, within the limits that it can. The use of hazelnut twigs or other "bendy wood" is marvellous - it looks good and is natural - cheating, but who cares!!
Sorry I have warbled Pennylane – as WT says hardy geraniums are ideal or perhaps hostas and astilbes..so many things.
I hope others have some good ideas to help…
RF
Unusual, I know. 
You could start the year off by having little bulbs under your bushes, Penny. Then something like the Geranium. Or Nasturtiums could be planted, to twine up through the bare twigs. Violas and Pansies would work too.