Tell me how to start a border

Xyz123

Hi, I am a novice Gardner really..

I have a small garden with a narrow border against fence. Garden is south facing but we have couple of trees which prevent a lot of light coming to some paet of border   At the moment it's a bare border with some pots and I want to start a border.

Ideally I want evergreen plants as with two young kids I don't get to spend a lot of time to spend in garden. For shady part I can get ferns but not sure what to do in other parts. I have couple of acer palmatum in pots. Not sure if they can.be transplanted to border. 
I am in London so heavy clay. In the past I have tried acid loving plants but they didn't fare well so I guess I have alkaline soil. 

Thanks 

JoeX

I’d suggest making the narrow border wider, to about a metre.

It would be good to get an idea of what already grows there, as that might indicate what does well.  And if you can, if it gets at least 6hrs of direct sun or less, and the acidity of the soil.

For my first border, I lifted the turf, bug in some cheap compost and threw loads of bulbs in, some grapevines and a few random plants.  Even though it was clearly an amateur effort it was still great to see things growing and get a feel for the maintenance required and what works.

Flinster

Think one of the most important things is soil preparation... remove any rubbish and large stones etc, dig it over to a good depth and dig in lots of compost/manure etc. This is a tedious task but it will be really worth it because you can’t do it once the plants are in and everything will grow much better for it .