Any one like to help Overrun get her new garden (which at present is just lawn) into shape?

[Overrun]

We have just bought a house and the garden is a reasonable size but they have no borders or plants of any sort.
My dh and I want to create a garden that has the type of shrubs, flowers,trees that will give it character and be atractive to wildlife (esp birds).
We are thinking of putting a 2 foot border down one side and along the bottom of the garden. Garden faces South West, we are going to have a good luck at the soil to try and determine what type, but think it is probably high in Clay.
We have 3 energetic boys of 2.5(dts) and a 4 year old. So can't have anything too delicate. We also want to create a herb garden.
We are not without rl help with this, as dh comes from a gardening family who can give tips, and we have bought a couple of books. I just thought that inviting MNetters who I know have strong opinions on everything, we would get a good wide view
Tia

This is exciting to us, but obviously not exciting enough for you lot

(sorry - can't really help as our garden is a complete disgrace, border-wise, but if it's any consolation, they're probably all actually out in their gardens. Maybe bump it again later...)

JackieNO, you are probably right, its such a lovely day. I am not sure really what I am doing inside

Me neither. And yet here I am, at the computer as usual...

Well, too much sun is bad for you, you know

Not much of a gardener but I have a couple of shrubs in our garden that are very good at surviving the rough and tumble of the children.

Californian lilac, hebes, forsythia (sp?), escallonia, mahonia.

We use to have a huge shrubby thing, think it was called something like "pheasant shrub" which had little dangly red flowers on and then lovely rich coloured berries. (Not sure about safety here!) It was right in the mifddle of what use to be a country cottage garden, which we have slowly made more child freindy and lass work for me! We have several growing again, but not to any size yet, but they seem very hardy.

I have found most of my rockery plants and alpines quite childproof too!!

OMG- sorry for spellings!

Thanks Dingle, childproof sounds good

I think the rule is to make your border as wide as you can and I prefer a bit of a curve to my borders so that they don't look so formal.

BTW Overrun, we are also in a S/SW facing garden with a very heavy clay/flint soil although loads of topsoil on it over the 9 years we have been here,and those plants are thriving in our garden.

Others that seem to do well with minimal care are our honeysuckle, euonymus (sp?) and passion flower plants, but need support or the will take over...bit like our periwinkle!

Please excuse my spelling, I have just read my post back

Any one from the Evening crowd?

Have you looked at crocus? i thhink theyhave good ideas, lathough a bit pricey.

Agree that curved borders look much better than dead straight.

How do you do curbed borders in a Square garden [think emoticon]

Lay out your hosepipe to try out different shapes.