What can I put in my garden?

[TribbleWithoutATardis]

I'll admit to being totally horrendous when it comes to plants, but my back garden looks horrendous and sparse.

Is there anything I can put in it that will make it look like I give a damn and isn't easy to kill (I've killed a catus before).

I was thinking some sort of evergreen, maybe some roses and lavender. I remember my Mum have roses at home and they seemed to survive our neglect.

My garden is south facing and currently has brambles and some sort of creeper thing with white flowers that twirls around the brambles in it.

Actually the white flower thing is bindweed.

Concentrate on getting rid of the bindweed and the brambles. Bindweed can re-grow from just an inch of root left in the ground. Declare chemical warfare over the winter

Have a few pots with things like winter pansies for colour, then in the spring you can - hopefully - start with a complete blank canvas and start planting up properly

See chemical warfare I can do, what's best?

Bindweed is one of the HARDEST things to get rid of. We mix systemic weed killer in cheap wallpaper paste, and paint it on, with a soft broom for the largest areas, smaller paintbrush when it is around plants you want to keep.

Hellebores and pulmonaria are nice, flowering in the late winter, very easy, and pulmonaria is virtually indestructible.

I'll come back sometime with other ideas.

www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/10648349/A-hellebore-for-almost-any-situation.html

www.bhg.com/gardening/plant-dictionary/perennial/lungwort/

Oh tribble its lovely that you have a south facing sunny garden! Is it damp or dry and what is your soil? ie clay or acid or sandy ?
Without knowing this it is hard to advise.

However I do agree with getting rid of the brambles and bindweed first and then perhaps mulching (ie spreading) your beds with some nice manure 4ins deep.

You can plant spring bulbs, snowdrops, crocuses, daffs, tulips , hellebores, wallflowers, forgetmenots
roses, fruit trees, between oct and dec and then other plants in the spring.