I going to talk out the back of my head here - but I wonder if a grass border would work?
I'm not a fan of grasses in ornamental borders because they often end up looking messy so I don't grow them - so hands up, I don't really know what I'm talking about - but I have seen something similar to this at a garden I've visited somewhere, sometime...
Perhaps 3 spaced plants of the golden oat to give substance, height and interest without density and then one or two other varieties of lower grasses to fill in the space. Some grasses have lovely colours, others have lovely silky heads.
The bulbs will still grow up through the grasses - especially if they're ones you cut down at the end of winter.
Heaven is ... sitting in the garden with a G&T and a cat while watching the sun go down
@B3 op said it was an offending border! As to hebe shrubs you could try different ones for longer season of interest although some have lovely foilage. I love symmetry and really have to try not to have a regimented look so different heights or one tall in the middle and 2 smaller either side, oh that's still symmetrical, Still have your bulbs, alliums, daffodils. A lower growing better behaved geranium is Azure Rush.
You need some evergreens for something to look at in winter. There are Euonymus in several varieties, Silver Queen is green and white, Emerald'n'Gold is what it says. Choose one and put one at either end, then put a Hebe in the middle. We inherited one here that we called the Bun. It always looked neat, never needed trimming but just got gradually bigger every year. It was plain green with white flowers in summer. You've now got the start of a colour scheme - green, white and yellow. You could choose another colour to add. It could be blue or purple - that might suggest a suitable Hebe. Or it could be orange for a different feel. If you add plants in your chosen colours and repeat them, they will look less bitty.
Daylilies (Hemerocallis) are good, almost bombproof, start early into growth and withstand wind and weather - my garden's at 1200ft in the windy West Pennines, so I know! There's a nice one called H.Lilio-asphodelus that flowers in May and is sweetly scented and there are others in yellows, white, orange and lavender that flower later in the year. Their leaves look good even when they are not in flower.
Geraniums are another reliable plant and there are good purples and Rozanne, a long flowering blue.
'George Davidson' is a yellow flowered Crocosmia, shorter than Lucifer, multiplies well.
Aster X Frikartii 'Monch' is a good blue flowered aster, not too tall, that flowers from late summer into autumn.
Phlox paniculata makes tidy clumps, doesn't need staking, even here, and comes in lots of colours. Heights vary, so check, but most would not be too tall, given the border is below the patio.
Heleniums come in oranges and yellow and are reliable if they don't get slugged too badly at the start of the growing season.
You could add a few tulips to follow on from your daffodils in your chosen colours, or add some annuals later if you wanted.
Finally self -seeders, if you have the temperament for them, are great at tying things together! Possibles would be Welsh poppies in yellow and orange, Feverfew, white and yellow, forget-me-nots in blue and Linaria purpurea in purple. Similar effect to Verbena bonariensis but less fussy.
Wow! Thank you so much for that comprehensive advice. I'm going to research and mull it for a week or two. I was planning to start again in the autumn. But could I get away with it in the summer, given that it looks terrible at the moment and I won't be keeping much apart from the bulbs and one Autumn flowering perennial which I might move to another bed?
Carmarthenshire (mild, wet, windy). Loam over shale, very slightly sloping, so free draining. Mildly acidic or neutral.
Just a note of caution - my garden is very windy and often cold. I can't grow most hebes - the leaves get burned. The whipcord hebes are fine - I use 'James Stirling' a fair bit for a change of leaf colour - and I have one very small leafed one in a sheltered spot that's clinging to life.
I find the shorter crocosmias are pretty sturdy in the wind - Lucifer is probably the floppiest one (I have got a couple but I have to stake them).
Astrantias seem to cope with the wind too.
I'd be inclined to clear it out as soon as you have time and energy to do it. Then either wait for rain or give it a thorough soaking and dig in some organic stuff (unless you plan to go the wildflower route). You can then sort through your bulbs, see what you have - they'll be OK out of the ground for a while at this time of year. You might be better leaving the perennial alone for now though - unless you're getting more rain than most, it's not a good time to move established plants just now- they are all a bit stressed already. If it's small enough to go into a pot and you can cherish it a bit, that may work Otherwise I'd leave it until you're ready to start planting things, when the rain starts again.
I would steer clear of Rozanne - it gets so big and will dominate that bed (as I think you've found already). You could have a few of one of the smaller ones - Johnson's Blue, maybe - to give you mid spring flower and then cut back. Centaurea gives a similar effect, or a mix of the two with similar flower colour to tie the spring plants together along there.
That photo was taken either late July or very early August last year - those flowers last until the first frosts apart from the crocosmias which have rather good seed heads that I also like. There's lonicera nitida and holly in the spine of the bed to give it winter form and colour, but both might get a bit big for your situation - small hebes would stand in very well, if they'll cope with the wind.
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Thank you. The Hebe that is doing well here does get some shelter from a bed of mixed shrubs now that I think about it. I hadn't thought about it struggling with high wind. It sounds like you get worse wind than us, but as my problem bed gets no shelter, maybe better not have a Hebe. You're right, we've had no significant rain for months, so I can't get on with it - need to be patient, damn it.
Carmarthenshire (mild, wet, windy). Loam over shale, very slightly sloping, so free draining. Mildly acidic or neutral.
It's worth waiting A good chance to plan it all out carefully (and then buy completely different things but hey, you had a plan )
We're exposed to Northwesterlies here - everything from due west to due north hits us very hard, so it's cold winds. And being SE of Exmoor, it's usually a relatively dry wind when it gets here, so very few evergreens keep their leaves. Euonymous do though, if that gives you a clue. As does brachyglotis - a bit 'in your face yellow' but very useful and a nice silver leaf. We have lots of juniper, too.
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Yes, so true about buying different things if you leave it for a bit! Our winds are mostly westerlies, although still pretty nasty in the winter, but not usually dry - that sounds challenging. Our rain is usually plentiful, and horizontal more often than it's vertical. Hopefully you get less slugs than us though: on a mild, damp night there's one every 6-8 inches in every direction as far as the eye can see. But they don't eat the Euonymus that I have, so I'm definitely getting a couple of those, probably the green and white one. The green and yellow ones were in everyone's garden (along with a few isolated rose bushes and rigid rows of begonias and lobelia), when I was small, so I don't think I'm ever going to like them.
Carmarthenshire (mild, wet, windy). Loam over shale, very slightly sloping, so free draining. Mildly acidic or neutral.
@K67 is often harsh. I would go for tallish, chunky shrubs - perhaps a bushy, hardy, salvia hedge? Perhaps Bumble pruned for density? Not year round interest, but under planted with bulbs will work until new salvia growth appears.
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I'm not a fan of grasses in ornamental borders because they often end up looking messy so I don't grow them - so hands up, I don't really know what I'm talking about - but I have seen something similar to this at a garden I've visited somewhere, sometime...
Perhaps 3 spaced plants of the golden oat to give substance, height and interest without density and then one or two other varieties of lower grasses to fill in the space. Some grasses have lovely colours, others have lovely silky heads.
The bulbs will still grow up through the grasses - especially if they're ones you cut down at the end of winter.
As to hebe shrubs you could try different ones for longer season of interest although some have lovely foilage. I love symmetry and really have to try not to have a regimented look so different heights or one tall in the middle and 2 smaller either side, oh that's still symmetrical,
Still have your bulbs, alliums, daffodils.
A lower growing better behaved geranium is Azure Rush.
I find the shorter crocosmias are pretty sturdy in the wind - Lucifer is probably the floppiest one (I have got a couple but I have to stake them).
Astrantias seem to cope with the wind too.
I'd be inclined to clear it out as soon as you have time and energy to do it. Then either wait for rain or give it a thorough soaking and dig in some organic stuff (unless you plan to go the wildflower route). You can then sort through your bulbs, see what you have - they'll be OK out of the ground for a while at this time of year. You might be better leaving the perennial alone for now though - unless you're getting more rain than most, it's not a good time to move established plants just now- they are all a bit stressed already. If it's small enough to go into a pot and you can cherish it a bit, that may work Otherwise I'd leave it until you're ready to start planting things, when the rain starts again.
I would steer clear of Rozanne - it gets so big and will dominate that bed (as I think you've found already). You could have a few of one of the smaller ones - Johnson's Blue, maybe - to give you mid spring flower and then cut back. Centaurea gives a similar effect, or a mix of the two with similar flower colour to tie the spring plants together along there.
That photo was taken either late July or very early August last year - those flowers last until the first frosts apart from the crocosmias which have rather good seed heads that I also like. There's lonicera nitida and holly in the spine of the bed to give it winter form and colour, but both might get a bit big for your situation - small hebes would stand in very well, if they'll cope with the wind.
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
We're exposed to Northwesterlies here - everything from due west to due north hits us very hard, so it's cold winds. And being SE of Exmoor, it's usually a relatively dry wind when it gets here, so very few evergreens keep their leaves. Euonymous do though, if that gives you a clue. As does brachyglotis - a bit 'in your face yellow' but very useful and a nice silver leaf. We have lots of juniper, too.
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”