... so recommend me something that will cope with the work to come, please!!?
Been —hard— pruning the cherry plum, taking down all the self-seeded ash saplings in the front and pruning back what I think is a forsythia, only to discover a second azalea and a dwarf rhododendron !! Then I planted my rosemary (which took some doing as the ground was full of cotoneaster roots, a plant which seems to have taken up residence as a replacement for grass
) and looked for somewhere to put three unknown bulbs that I had just found in a pot - which is when my trowel gave up, handed in its towel, said goodbye and snapped at the handle 
I still have a tonne of bulbs to plant, which will also take some doing in an area which is currently full of moss