Please help plan my plain garden!

[Mrsallovertheplace]

I'm begging for advice! My garden is south facing, so the back fence is facing north and usually shady. Ideally I'd love a colourful climber that would give us some privacy at the end and something to either climb or detract from the neighbours plants at both sides, both sides get lots of light but the soil is still quite clumpy/clay but we've been digging lots into it the past two years so is much better than it was. I'm not sure what the bushes are but they don't flower and ideally I'd get the husband to dig them out.

So I guess I'm looking for shady, fast growing beautiful climbers (clematis?) for the back and I could move the raspberries and strawberry plants there next year (some are there already and some raspberries in the border to the right) and some ideas for the sides at different heights.

On a side note, for the past two years we've had these gorgeous purple flowers come up, can anyone suggest what they might be? Would they have been bulbs? And is it too late to pop some bulbs in for this year for a bit of colour?

Any advice at all is much appreciated, I'm so far out of my depth here! And it all has to be child friendly

[howaboutshopping]

Your purple flowers are crocus - bulbs. You can buy some varieties of bulbs to plant now for summer colour but spring bulbs are usually planted Sept/Oct time. You can find tons of bulbs already in flower in the garden centres & you can plant those out now.

[howaboutshopping]

Thinking about the darkest bits of my garden, I have a really beautiful small-flowered yellow climbing rose (grows very quickly) called 'Rosa Banksiae Lutea'. It loves a north facing wall. Despite the old name it's not rare & is available all over the place.

bodnant-plants.co.uk/rosa-banksiaelutea

I also have a yellow/green variagated ivy with it which loves north-facing.

[howaboutshopping]

Reading again, I see you have clay soil. Bay trees absolutely love clay. I have some. You could put one at the end and keep it trimmed like a shrub. It gives enough density to block out the view of the neighbours through the slatted fence and you can use the leaves in your stews etc.

[JT05]

Your bushes look like a cononeaster - the low growing spickey one and on the fence an ivy. The cotoneaster will have small insignificant flowers and are mostly grown for their berries. You can prune it now to make a better shape. The ivy will take over unless you keep it in check and can be pruned at any time.
I grow a climbing rose Golden Showers on a north facing wall, its yellow and scented. The bulbs are indeed crocus. Have a look on Pinterest for lots of garden ideas. First you need to decide what style of garden you want. Lots of others will come on with excellent advice. Have fun designing it!

[JoJoSM2]

How about some preached trees for privacy?

[JoJoSM2]

*pleached