Maud, thank you. I was wondering about a large hummocky shrub like a choisya.
The last 24 hrs I have been dreaming about a great big fat bounder, but really I know it is tactical (and I now know, expensive!). And possibly a bit indulgent..
I only have one clematis here so far, but it is wrong, wrong, wrong. It is a montana planed in a crowded raised ribbon border, and I had to cut all the flowering growths off it last autumn, as it was 'walking', in fact galloping, across the communal driveway and over the car which H isnt currently driving. So no flowers this year. I think the last people wanted it tumbling down the wall, but the wall is 3ft high, so it was a very poor choice.
There are heaps of other expensive and lovely shrubs in this border, which wraps around the house, for about 50-60 ft by a metre. They are mostly doing very well, but they were planted very very close together and next year or the year after, if not this, that will be a problem for them . For example, in one square metre, there is a two foot rhododendron, an acer dissectum palmatum (6 ft), and a five ft tree like exochorda, in flower. At the edge of that same metre, or very near, is a robinia, which is growing feet per year.
I know I have to move some, but I cant until I have a bed to put them in. Also, I think the soil in that south and west border is imported and sandy, but the rear garden is East facing and hilly clay.