Ideas for an irregular shaped raised bed

[Chippychop]

....please it's on the edge of my patio and will have a seating area (aka decking) next to it with large cushions as a chilling area. It was mean to have herbs in it but I'd like something a bit brighter... Maybe shrubby so there is something there in winter.. Any thoughts ???

How much sun does it get? How big is it?

It gets sun until mod/late afternoon and is quite exposed... As its on the edge of a large patio, it's kind of off centre in the garden, and it's about 8ftx 8ft. Thanks

From your description, Chippy, this sounds similar to my garden (photos in profile). I've planted various shrubs to grow quite big (inc photinia, pieris, euonymus, choisya) then filled in the gaps with different coloured heucheras, plus ground-hugging sedums, thymes, saxifrages, etc.

I've concentrated on a variety of foliage colours, rather than flowers, and mainly evergreen plants (I hope!)

Your garden looks lovely Ladymud.

Ooh that's quite a decent sized space OP and a reasonable amount of sun too. I'd definitely consider some shrubs as they are lower maintenance than other plants. I'd also pick a colour scheme and think about contrasting foliage as well as flowers for colour. Do you want there to be year round interest? As it's next to a seating area some ants for scent would be good too. Loads of ideas to steal from Ladymud.

What colours do you fancy?

Plants rather than ants for scent

Well I fancy the idea of a smell or a theme like silver/blue grey foliage... But I have a newly planted big bed with hardy various shrubs in various colours - do you think it'll look ok to p with a colour theme?

What colours are the shrubs in your existing bed?

I think you can vary it if you have a gap between them.

My front garden is pinks, white and burgundy in one bed and more mauves whites and purples in the other (with a splash of hot pink)

In the back garden I've got one bed which is yellow/lime green, purple blue and white. Two which are hot colours - red orange burgundy and a little white. And at the far (shady) end, it's all green and white with lots of variegated foliage. I think it all works well but right next to each other maybe wouldn't so well iykwim?

Yes IKWYM there is a big gap between the beds. The big bed has everything in it from euphorbia, spiraea, Berberis, roses, Choisya etc and colours are mixed white, pink, yellows, purple. A garden centre put it together for me but I'd kind of like a more modern bed in this