Would anybody enjoy helping me plan a border?

[bigbadbarry]

We've got a long straight strip next to the drive - just over a metre wide and about 9 metres long. It was very old and tired so I completely dug it out in the autumn - all I saved was a couple of oriental poppies (one plum, one bright orange/red) and I see there are some random bulbs coming up now that look like crocuses and hyacinths. I had thought to plant lots of bulbs but then I decided that would make spring planting difficult, so just manured it and let it sit. Now I need to decide what to put back in! It needs to be fairly low maintenance, being at the front, but I definitely want flowers and interest not a shrubbery. I have one beautiful rose ready to go in - can't remember its name without going to look but it is white with red stripes. Other than that...anything!
It is fairly clay-y and quite heavy; there is a privet hedge along the back that is about a foot high and a tall beech on the front (short) but otherwise it isn't shaded. What do you reckon?
Or failing brilliant border plans, has anybody seen anything beautiful online?

What's the secret gardening club? Will investigate. When would you all suggest I do this - sort of March time? Must have it full before Tatton flower show (July): I spend a fortune there every year to achieve the 'crazy in a garden centre' effect and spaces in the border will not help that!
Can I have one of those nice things whose names escape me, with the purple berries? That would give winter interest and match my colour scheme :)
I really love hellebores and don't dislike heucheras so thanks for suggesting them. And I also enjoy a hardy fuchsia - there are a couple doing very well in the back garden so that is a good suggestion. Again, my main issue is arranging them so they look nice not bunged in (and not overdoing it).
Agree August is tricky - we generally go away then and come back to a jungle.

I would plant lots of small Sping bulbs in clumps. When they finish sow Calendula, California poppies, cornflowers, nigella, lavatera and cosmos. This will give you a long display in the summer and will self seed. Also they will provide lots of cut flowers for the house.

For bit of drama Ajuja has dark black leaves and bright gentian blue spike flowers. A great spreader and totally hardy. It really compliments the yellow of the calendula and California poppies.

Mini daffs and small iris will sit happily under the soil

It's at secretgardeningclub (dot) co (dot) uk. It is good for bulk-buying, which is what you need to make it look less 'bitty' and more designed' (as someone said upthread). This is a lesson I've learned over the past couple of years having made many mistakes myself due to not being able to resist a beautiful plant, but only being able to afford the one! That website generally sells things in groups of three or four, which is good for domestic scale gardening.

Do you mean a callicarpa for the purple berries? They are lovely and I can't see any reason why it wouldn't work really well for you!

In terms of planting, personally I'd do it gradually but with a big push in spring when the ground is a bit warmer, and another push in autumn for your spring bulbs for next year. I am always finding I need to divide and move things thereafter, though!!

To save some money at Tatton (ah, the peril of lovely garden shows!) you could fill spaces with sown annuals the first year. That will allow you to plant at the right kind of distance to allow perennial things room to grow, but still give a 'full' look for the first year. I know some people recommend planting a little bit overly close for visual appeal in the first year, but you then have to move lots of things in the autumn, which is a pain!

Yes! Callicarpa. Thank you.
I will definitely put lots of bulbs in next autumn - was going to do it this time but thought it would just make planting the perennials in spring more difficult.
So if i get, say, 4 of everything. I don't want to put them in in the same order and have 4 identical quarters, do I. How do I do that?
Annuals in between to stop me buying too many is a great idea - and I always love bringing in cut flowers thank you florentina. In fact last year I stared a small cutting bed (no need to lay it out beautifully, which suits my skills!)

Sorry - I didn't explain very well. I meant plant the repeat plants together, in groups rather than scattering them through - your eye wants to see and register the similarity.

There are two ways of doing this: you can simply put them next to each other to create a more vibrant area of texture/colour (this is probably the easiest way). The picture here is a result of doing this - this is Beth Chatto, characteristically planting in clumps so she gets that amazing variety of colour and texture really punching through.

Or you can drift them through a border, focusing on repeats. I think this is more risky, though, for two reasons. Firstly, you need to be fairly constantly on top of things to make sure they are all happy all the time. Secondly, it can look like a dog's dinner if you aren't really careful - you seem to need an awful lot of repeats for this to work (think twenty salvias rather than three, each of them perfectly placed). The second picture is a brilliant example of achieving this high art - it's Patrick Collins's superb garden at Chelsea.

Of course, you can mix the two up a bit!!

I don't know why but I find odd numbered groups work best for me visually - three seems to be ideal, five for a larger drift. Anyone else agree about this?

You can get the same effect by buying single plants, but it takes years and years to divide them and get them to the right size!

There is probably a whole technical language to describe this - apologies to the true professional landscapers on this forum for my amateur attempts!

Ooops, pictures posted in the wrong order. The one with the pink poppies is Chatto, the one with the blue salvias, Collins.

Both pictures beautiful and inspiring, thank you. My natural taste prefers the steppy one to the gravel one but if my by-these-standards minute front border looked half as good as either i would be thrilled!
Having lived in japan for a couple of years, all groupings must contain odd numbers. Anything else is Wrong. Plants, ornaments, vases. Children ;) I think that is fairly well accepted.

I probably don't want three callicarpas, do I? So does the grouping rule apply to the perennials but not things like roses?

I've just ordered the Christopher Lloyd colours book from the library :)

All I know is tallest plants at the back and shorter ones at the front.

Those are very wide borders and the trees which provide vertical interest are stunning

I've never managed the repeat thing because of my garden being quite small but Wisley does repeats very nicely in their long border.

The other thing is the large clump of a plant which looks magnificent in a border but takes at east two years to materialise and, I suspect, feeding and nurturing and deadheading to last the season. I don't include the hardy geraniums in this group as they clump up and flower with very little effort, but, for example, peonies or asters or grasses or penstemons and indeed the salvias repeated so beautifully in the Chelsea garden shove posted. humphrey's garden was brilliant at the clumping and repeating thing as I recall

My hellebores also don't generate very large clumps and I noticed at Great Dixter last year they got round this by planting with variegated cyclamen so that the hellebores were framed against the cyclamen leaves. But other gardens I have seen just have bare soil between the hellebores which doesn't really do anything for me

I am going to use this spring to divide and move plants. I dont want to divide them too early in their loves otherwise they wont clump up and occupy the space and will remain rather straggly

Sorry...lives
Sorry about the overuse of the word 'clump'

Clump is a great word.
I adore peonies but you are quite right about them. I have one in the front (the other bit of the front, not this project) cleverly placed - not by me! - behind a massive dogwood so you can't see it unless you go into the border to look at it. I understand they dislike being moved so i might just remove the dogwood; it is huge and only looks nice in january. And another, out the back, plonked into a border when we moved in (by me) 0 can be admired from the dining room but it is really not well placed. Stupid things.

The Scandanavians have this lovely serene purple/grey colour thing in their gardens which I really like but it is better for a tranquil back garden. Front gardens need a bit of pizazz and cheerfulness to welcome one home after a possibly tough day and also to brighten up the neighbourhood and make passers by smile
So perhaps dark purples and bright pinks rather than soft lilacs and pastels which look better in the back garden
Also someone- could have been Monty- mentioned about the colours of the garden changing through the seasons: yellows and blues in spring, pinks and purples in summer and oranges and reds in the Autumn.
So this year I have planted more yellow spring plants to complement and not fight the primroses: a yellow azalea lutea, yellow and red tulips, pale wall flowers and to contrast, deep purple iris reticulata.
These will give way in summer to alliums and gladioli byzantium. Maybe I'll take the advice upthread and plant some annual cosmos and/or calendula. There are some very beautiful cosmos varieties.

Dark purple sounds good because I very much love buddleia, so a lovely dark one could sit at the back. I'm not really pastel by inclination (it's a bit tasteful for me!) although I know exactly what you mean about that lovely soothing grey-purple.
Wall flowers are another love.