Looking for winter/spring colour I would go for hellebores, forget-me-nots, brunneria, wallflowers. My bush salvias (Bumble) are in flower from now - bright colour until the frosts. Mexican fleabane also now in full flower till the frosts. Feverfew, Alchemilla mollis, hardy geranium.
I would go along to some of the big gardens (RHS etc) and have a look at the spring borders around Easter.
A couple of plants l wouldn't be without are pulmonaria "Blue Ensign" and geum "Totally Tangerine". The issue of the border drying out in Summer but being so wet in the winter has been at the back of my mind. Shrubs would be able to cope better with the winter wet. I don't have any experience of loamy soil l'm afraid. Another piece of advice would be to visit Garden Centres and gardens (as @Fire suggests) at different times of the year to see what's of interest. I look forward to seeing the photos later !
One way to solve the spring bulbs problem is to plant them in big tubs, stand them out of sight - at the back of the border perhaps - through the autumn and winter and then move them when you see the flower buds appearing in spring. Place them in the gaps on the sunny side for the few weeks that they flower and then move them back out of the way as they go over.
Take photos in identical positions of sections of the borders at regular intervals (the 1st of every month, say). Once you have a whole year, lay them all out on the table and look for space that you could make/use for an evergreen shrub. Decide if it should be dark green, blue green, variegated or whatever to be a suitable backdrop for the plants that are there in summer. Then do some research for an evergreen shrub for your conditions.
Try not to 'lollipop' the border by having a shrub every few feet - gap - shrub - gap - shrub. Think about clearing one of your less successful groups of perennials and replacing it with a small group - 3 probably - of different woody shrubs to make an area of winter interest.
See if you can get hold of a book called 'The Winter Garden' by Val Bourne
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Right now (April into May) forget-me-not and honesty and I are looking good and providing a lot of colour in my garden. They are both biennial but once you have them they self-sow reliably. You just need to pull out the ones that come up too close to your other plants.
I agree pots are the way to go for bulbs. I plant mine 3 to 5 to each pot so I get something like the potted ones that you can buy in spring but much cheaper, and plant them out in February before they flower, when I can see where the spaces between perennials are.
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
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Another piece of advice would be to visit Garden Centres and gardens (as @Fire suggests) at different times of the year to see what's of interest.
I look forward to seeing the photos later !
Take photos in identical positions of sections of the borders at regular intervals (the 1st of every month, say). Once you have a whole year, lay them all out on the table and look for space that you could make/use for an evergreen shrub. Decide if it should be dark green, blue green, variegated or whatever to be a suitable backdrop for the plants that are there in summer. Then do some research for an evergreen shrub for your conditions.
Try not to 'lollipop' the border by having a shrub every few feet - gap - shrub - gap - shrub. Think about clearing one of your less successful groups of perennials and replacing it with a small group - 3 probably - of different woody shrubs to make an area of winter interest.
See if you can get hold of a book called 'The Winter Garden' by Val Bourne
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”