New garden, new gardener!

[Melonbreath]

For the first time we have a garden. It has just been done and looks lovely, but bare!
I've ordered a prunus cherry tree as our garden isn't the biggest but was wondering about plants/flowers and need suggestions.
I like things that attract birds and butterflies and things that smell nice. I was looking at buddlieas but I think they might grow a bit big. Do dwarf buddlieas exist? And do they do ok in beds rather than pots?
Also flowers that cascade? We have a flower bed on the top of a wall.

What sort of soil do you have? Which way does your garden face?

Nasturtiums will cascade over a wall, and they're really easy to grow from seed. They're annuals though- do you want something more permanent?

Buddleias can get big if you don't prune them. I cut mine down every winter, you only get flowers on the new growth anyway.

Lavender smells nice and the bees love it.

Aubrietia for your wall? Cascades beautifully.

Iberis Sempervirens cascades nicely down one of my walls along with aubrietia , Erigeron Glaucus and Karvinskianus and honeysuckle .

There are dwarf buddleia. Bees love Sedum in our garden and scabious.

I have seen dwarf buddleia in one of the plant catalogue email things I get sent so they do exist - white, pink or purple if I remember rightly. I think buddleia's do tend to spread a lot though but I am sure the ones I saw were called patio buddleia and could go in pots.

I like semi evergreen honeysuckle - we have one which has bright orangey flowers on it. honeysuckles also smell lovely.

lavender - big favourite of mine and bees love it.

californian lilac - erm is it called ceanothus? bees love their bluey purple flowers too.

hebes are nice bushes and can be different sorts so different colour flowers.

Camelia bushes are lovely if you have the right kind of soil - can't remember if it has to be acid or alkaline but if you see lots growing where you are then you should be fine, if not then you would need to check.

We have a magnolia grandiflora exmouth tree which I LOVE, and also a Forest Pansy tree, both are quite small but beautiful.

you could have a little patch somewhere to just sow wild flower seeds, I try to have some of these just purely because they look so natural and pretty and the bees and butterflies flock to them.

Magnolia grandiflora 'Exmouth' is indeed lovely, but not small - it can grow to 12m tall by 8m wide.

oh can it? good thing ours is down the bottom of the garden so that isn't actually a problem for us.

Thanks guys! I have made a list to take to the garden centre. I'm not sure about annuals, everything I've grown apart from orchids has died fairly quickly!
The garden soil is mostly clay but we have put a lot of top soil down.
It sort of faces East, it's a corner garden so part or it faces north and is always in the shade and the other corner is East but nearly always gets the sun. Most of the plants would be in the shady bit.

Thanks guys! I have made a list to take to the garden centre. I'm not sure about annuals, everything I've grown apart from orchids has died fairly quickly!
The garden soil is mostly clay but we have put a lot of top soil down.
It sort of faces East, it's a corner garden so part or it faces north and is always in the shade and the other corner is East but nearly always gets the sun. Most of the plants would be in the shady bit.

heucheras are happy in shade. we have a bit of our garden doesn't get much sun at all and in that bit we have lavender, fennel, ice plants (sedum?), climbing hydrangea, periwinkle and a hellebore. they seem quite happy and flower ok.