You could also add things like fennel - especially the bronze one, as it give a good contrast to other foliage. Aquilegias will also be fine to add another vertical. Veronicas should also be fine. Euphorbia would be another useful evergreen - lots of varieties, and some aren't evergreen so choose carefully. Another good contrast to other foliage.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Yes Robert, my HL gets about 3ft tall by 5ft wide, I have about 6 or 7 in various colours but two young ones died in winter - luckily I took cuttings. I'd have a forest of them if I could. 😄
There's lots of choice for a spot like that so it really comes down to what you prefer in terms of style and colours, and what you have time to maintain. The shrubby salvias don't take much looking after, just a prune in the spring, and there are plenty of colour choices besides the bicolour "lips" ones. Some are more compact in habit too.
Lavenders are similarly low maintenance but don't always respond well to pruning and can get woody and gnarly after a few years at which point they're best replaced.
Many herbaceous plants will be fine there but they don't all flower for months on end so you'd need to choose carefully for succession.
If the soil is slightly alkaline, pinks/dianthus would probably be happy and smell good too. I like D. carthusianum which makes low green "grassy" hummocks with taller flower stems waving above. Some of the others have nice blue/grey foliage.
Thinking about scent, someone mentioned achillea. Be careful of those if there's a path or window nearby (I can't tell if that's a house wall or a garden wall) - some of them have quite a strong smell that I find unpleasant, although others might like it. Try before you buy!
If ceanothus got too big then buddleia will also get too big very quickly (unless you could find a properly dwarf one). There's a low-growing ceanothus - C. thyrisiflorus repens I think. There's a nice dwarf lilac, Syringa "Palibin" but the flowering period is quite short, like all lilacs. If you like flowering shrubs, some of the smaller weigela like W. "Monet" might also be worth considering.
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
I have a similar area. I have an orange Erysimum flowering beautifully there at the moment, as well as an orange geum and a Dunwich rose. Before that I had irises, but I dug those up and split them and put them in an adjacent bed. I also have a phlomis there that does well.
The bed with the orange erysimum is a bit deeper than it looks in this picture.
Thank you to everyone who has replied to my request for advice. The responses have been fantastic and I now have lots of ideas to work through to plan my border. When it is finished (don't hold your breath), I'll post some photos to this discussion. Thank you all once again.
Posts
Veronicas should also be fine.
Euphorbia would be another useful evergreen - lots of varieties, and some aren't evergreen so choose carefully. Another good contrast to other foliage.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
The bed with the orange erysimum is a bit deeper than it looks in this picture.
The responses have been fantastic and I now have lots of ideas to work through to plan my border.
When it is finished (don't hold your breath), I'll post some photos to this discussion.
Thank you all once again.