New bed

BeckyWiggo

Hi all, I am after some advice. We have recently moved to a new house and are very lucky to have a lovely south facing garden. It has a few trees around the edges but is lacking coloru. I have just dug up a new flower bed and now need to work out what to plant in it. I am only a beginner in terms of gardening so am not really sure where to start. It is about 1.5m depth by approx 2.5 width. I would love lots of colour and different height and textures in the bed. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Also one thing to note is half of the bed is shaded for some of the day due to a nearby tree. Thank you in advanced. 

K67

Budget.? Buying  large or small plant pots.
Colour preferences?
Assume it has a fence or wall so climbers, roses and/or clematis.
Some spring bulbs.
Shrubs or all perennial flowers or a mix.
Hardy geraniums for ground cover 
All my beds are about your size as they are built from sleepers 
Style? Tidy architectural or more a mass or in my case a mess of plants.
Crocus do ready made border packs but they are helpful to see styles and quantities.
Plants spread a fair bit so don't plant too closely unless they are annuals.

FlyDragon

A good place is to work out what kind of soil you've got.  

If you're not sure, this soil map can help:
http://www.landis.org.uk/data/natmap.cfm 

BeckyWiggo

Thank you so much for all that information and I will look at the soil map and will look at all the plant suggestions too. It is quite stoney ground, i know that much as it was hard work digging the bed! There is a fence behind half of it and conifers behind the other half so I could definitely grow some climbers up the fence (it's a bit of an ugly fence so covering it will also help!). 

In terms of budget I don't mind spending money on it of it lasts and matures well. 

The images below are what I love the style of if that helps. 

Thanks again its a great help

FlyDragon

Treeface said:

FlyDragon said:

A good place is to work out what kind of soil you've got.  

If you're not sure, this soil map can help:
http://www.landis.org.uk/data/natmap.cfm 

Yeah if you've got acidic soil you're stuffed

Nah, loads of lovely stuff will grow in acidic soil, you just need to know and then you can choose the right plants! 

FlyDragon

Have a search for 'cottage garden plants'

Lyn

I love my acid soil, can grow almost anything, asters not good, roses don’t  do well but I’m not keen on them, spiteful things.
Almost everything in those pictures will be easy to grow from seed or plug plants, depends if you have the money to buy lots of full grown plants or like me need to do it on a budget. 
This is a small corner of mine, the only plants bought are the Veronica on the right and the Vanilla Fraise hydrangea. All the rest are cuttings and seeds. Cost hardly anything. 
It needs a bit of thinking out, you have to plan for two years ahead, but very satisfying knowing you’ve grown them all from practically nothing.