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Advice for tricky border please

EmerionEmerion Posts: 599
in Garden design
I'm looking for a few ideas for a border right in front of the house. It looks lovely with loads of daffodils in the spring and it's all downhill from there. It's a tricky one - 3 feet deep by 14 feet long and west-facing. The size cannot be altered because It has a patio behind it and the farm yard in front. The patio is raised a foot above the border. We get a lot of wind and usually plenty of rain. The ground is good but well drained and neutral to slightly acidic in that bed.  I want a traditional feel, maybe cottage garden but it doesn't have to be that.  I've realised that I need to reduce the number of different plants to stop it looking bitty. However, it can't look completely bare and boring after the summer because it is the most visible border in the garden, so each plant has to work hard for its keep. I wouldn't mind either short/medium heights or tall, wispy things but obviously don't want tall and solid plants in front of the patio. Any ideas very gratefully received. 
Carmarthenshire (mild, wet, windy). Loam over shale, very slightly sloping, so free draining. Mildly acidic or neutral.


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  • K67K67 Posts: 2,506
    Can you post a photo please to get a better idea as you say it's in front of the house but then there's a patio and farmyard so I am confused!
  • EmerionEmerion Posts: 599
    I will when a piece of farm equipment has been moved out of the way  :) In the meantime - the house fronts  onto our farmyard. There is a patio immediately in front of the house, then the offending border, then the farmyard. When sitting on the patio, you look over the border and across the farmyard. 
    Carmarthenshire (mild, wet, windy). Loam over shale, very slightly sloping, so free draining. Mildly acidic or neutral.


  • raisingirlraisingirl Posts: 7,093
    foxgloves, lupins, verbena bonariensis, crocosmias, smaller ornamental grasses, echinacea, cornflowers, dwarf philadeplphus, prunus incisa Kojo-no-mai, box, Iris unguicularis
    Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon

    “It's still magic even if you know how it's done.” 
  • raisingirlraisingirl Posts: 7,093
    For example, this is crocosmia 'Cornish Copper' with echinacea 'white swan', cosmos 'purity', cornflower 'black ball' and a salvia in my garden

    They are growing in a 3 foot wide, sunny border - very exposed. There are also penstemons, stipa tenuissima and euphorbia in the same border. My soil is acidic.
    Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon

    “It's still magic even if you know how it's done.” 
  • EmerionEmerion Posts: 599
    Hi raisingirl, thankyou. I have tried some of those, but I always end up with too many  different things in order to extend the season of interest, and then it looks bitty. Tall Crocosmias, like Lucifer, get flattened by the wind.  Short ones might be OK. I don't think lupins will tolerate our soil.  I will look at each one of your suggestions and see if I can use any of them in large quantities as part of a simpler plan. This year, half of everything was killed by that late cold snap, and that white stuff has self seeded itself. 



    Carmarthenshire (mild, wet, windy). Loam over shale, very slightly sloping, so free draining. Mildly acidic or neutral.


  • K67K67 Posts: 2,506
    You are right it is offensive!
    Repairing the walling and weeding would do wonders.
    Does it have to be plant orientated could you do 3 or 5 small evergreen flowering shrubs  underplanted with a hardy geranium like Rozanne which flowers for months.


  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    That's a bit harsh K67 ;).neglected maybe.
    In London. Keen but lazy.
  • EmerionEmerion Posts: 599
    There actually aren't any weeds in it! 🙂 It certainly is neglected though. I haven't been able to get it right after a few years of messing about with different ideas and then losing plants to frost or slugs a few times - this is west wales and you haven't suffered properly with slugs if you haven't lived here! So I've got cheesed off with it and have been mostly ignoring it. I was thinking about including evergreens so that it's not bare in the winter. I like Hebes, and we have a lovely one elsewhere that would have worked well. Did you mean three or five of the same variety of shrub for simplicity? Or different ones for a spread of interest? That's my dilemma here - how to maximise the interest of a three foot wide bed. The garden of my previous house was infested with geranium Rozanne run wild when we moved in, so I've got an irrational hatred for it! Geraniums do well here though, so I might well use one.  
    Carmarthenshire (mild, wet, windy). Loam over shale, very slightly sloping, so free draining. Mildly acidic or neutral.


  • EmerionEmerion Posts: 599
    edited July 2018
    Forgot to say - blame my husband and assorted farming contractors for repeatedly demolishing the wall. 😀
    Carmarthenshire (mild, wet, windy). Loam over shale, very slightly sloping, so free draining. Mildly acidic or neutral.


  • EmerionEmerion Posts: 599
    edited July 2018
    Just seen your photo - that is lovely - does that give you a long season of interest if I were to include my daffodils?

    Carmarthenshire (mild, wet, windy). Loam over shale, very slightly sloping, so free draining. Mildly acidic or neutral.


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