What to plant now for Spring/Summer. . . complete novice!

[Jezabelle]

We have a nice long garden that we use lots for socialising with friends. Plenty of BBQs in the Summer and paddling pool parties for the little ones. Thing is, I have never got particularly into gardening and find the whole thing a bit daunting! Now the children are getting a bit older I figure I don't have any excuse not to get out and sort it!

I've decided to start by concentrating on the flower bed outside the house to keep it manageable! It's about 5 square meters and north facing. We have in there so far, some sort of an Iris, a miniature Magnolia and some Californian poppies (which I love). I began today by spraying all weeds with weed killer, (not sure that's approved of on here, but it's what the man at the garden centre advised!)

So, what next? Realistically I'm not going to spend hours on end gardening, so fairly low maintenance would be good. I'm after pretty and colourful for the months ahead and, as you can probably tell, haven't much a clue about what's available to plant now!

TIA

[tougholdbird]

Hmm, tricky as there isn't much around at the moment. You could put in hellebores now and keep an eye out for pulmonarias in garden centres soon, they are both good spring plants. For summer crocosmia are v easy and low maintenance, they spread quickly as well, but not sure when they will be available. I would just wander round your nearest garden centre and look at some labels - Good luck!