I'm looking for suggestions for a quick growing low height (12" - 18") spreading evergreen flowering shrub. I want to replace a rather tired part of a perennial border with something with very little maintenance. Area is 3 meters by half a meter.
It’ll help us make helpful suggestions if we know about the soil and aspect … and what plants you already have there? And an approximate geographic location?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Unfortunately, 'quick growing' and '12 to 18 inches' don't go together Anything quick growing is unlikely to stop at that height, so you'd be constantly trimming and cutting back.
Euonymous fortunei would be good, but it's grown for the foliage rather than flowers [which are insignificant] and doesn't need massive amounts of care and trimming to keep to smaller size. It's often used for low hedging. Readily available too, although soem varieties are tougher than others. If you have a suitable climate, aspect and soil, Lavender is the obvious one. You can buy reasonably good sized plants, so it wouldn't take long for them to reach the optimum height/spread.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I have an Erodium manescavi. Not a shrub, but a perennial, but in a sunny spot in well drained soil, it is completely trouble free for me.
It makes a tidy clump of grey-green , ferny leaves and produces bright pinky purple flowers on long stalks all summer long. Just pull off spent stems to keep it tidy if required. Doesn't seed around, though the bees like it. I have had it for a good few years now and it has taken anything the weather has thrown at it without complaint. It might be a little lower than your requested size in winter, but should just scrape in in summer. It is however a plant with 'presence'
Convolvulus cneorum might be a possibility, if you can give it the right conditions, but I have no experience of growing it myself.
If it's sunny, convolvulus cneorum is a good suggestion from Buttercupdays - I have one and in its second year, it is really doing well, lovely foliage and good flowers for pollinators.
Other suggestions: hebe, especially something like Blue Star. Heucheras come in a vast array of colours.
Convolvulus cneorum is a good shout if you have a mild climate as well as a sunny position and well-drained soil. It tends to look a bit ropey here after anything but a very mild winter. Culinary sage (Salvia officinalis) might work in sun and good drainage - it comes in purple leaved and variegated forms as well as plain green.
If you have moist acid soil and a bit of shade, a dwarf evergreen azalea or rhododendron might work but check the mature height and spread.
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
That convolvulus doesn't survive winter here, so it will depend on where the OP is. I grew it many years ago in what should have been ideal conditions - sunny site, against a house wall. Didn't make it through the first winter. We need the OP to give more info as per @Dovefromabove's post though.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
If it's a sunny spot parahebe Avalanche would fit the bill. Long flowering, short, not fast growing but you can buy the plant at a foot tall and it will stay low. Evergreen, low effort. Or prostrate ceanothus - again for a sunny spot. Evergreen.
Many thanks for your suggestions and advice. For the record, we are in central Gloucestershire. The garden is south facing and the border runs north-south next to a 3' fence. So it's in full sun for about 6 hours in winter and 12 in summer. Soil is free draining. The rest of the border is currently occupied by a spirea japonica 'Anthony Waterer', a silver ragwort and a lavender. All thriving mature plants.
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It’ll help us make helpful suggestions if we know about the soil and aspect … and what plants you already have there?
And an approximate geographic location?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Anything quick growing is unlikely to stop at that height, so you'd be constantly trimming and cutting back.
Euonymous fortunei would be good, but it's grown for the foliage rather than flowers [which are insignificant] and doesn't need massive amounts of care and trimming to keep to smaller size. It's often used for low hedging. Readily available too, although soem varieties are tougher than others.
If you have a suitable climate, aspect and soil, Lavender is the obvious one. You can buy reasonably good sized plants, so it wouldn't take long for them to reach the optimum height/spread.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
https://www.burncoose.co.uk/site/plants.cfm?pl_id=3806
https://www.gardenia.net/plant/rosmarinus-officinalis-prostratus-group-rosemary
I have had it for a good few years now and it has taken anything the weather has thrown at it without complaint. It might be a little lower than your requested size in winter, but should just scrape in in summer. It is however a plant with 'presence'
Other suggestions: hebe, especially something like Blue Star. Heucheras come in a vast array of colours.
It's just a bairn and will need time to spread but it's looking good so far.
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw
I grew it many years ago in what should have been ideal conditions - sunny site, against a house wall. Didn't make it through the first winter.
We need the OP to give more info as per @Dovefromabove's post though.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...