Help me plan my new garden

[drspouse]

It's L shaped and this picture is looking W towards the house, with the bottom of the L behind you. There's also a small bed behind you on the E wall which is the end of the garden.
The gravel between the flags is coming out as the landscapers put down compost/grit as it's going to be a green patio. A few things can be planted in the larger patio spaces too and I'm thinking soft fruit in the bed (that you can't see).
The previous people moved overseas so they left lots of Spiky Tall Plants and planters but honestly I'd prefer a kitchen garden, cottage feel so many of those will go.

Shape of garden. Sorry I can't work out how to write on the diagram. The picture is taken from roughly under the ladder thing (trellis).

Wall/bed/trellis

Loving the Spiky Tall Plants 😁

It's in the OP - the bed/wall face West. It's really hard to say how much sun though as it's so enclosed. So the RH wall as you view the photo/plan faces south but in the long thin bit the house shades it.
I have two potted roses and one potted fig on the less shaded south facing wall.

clematis are always good for small gardens with lots of walls & not much sun. type III are better because you cut them back every spring so they don't grow too big.

Next door has a clematis but it's enormous and keeps invading our garden! Hmm I wonder if I could have a rival?
The arch trellis has honeysuckle on currently by the way.

Hostas would look nice. Some have biggish leaves so a groupin a bed or in tubs can look quite lush.
Runner beans could grow up the trellis.
Garden looks quite shady so annuals grown from seed might srtruggle

It can be shady, yes, though parts are a sun trap at some times of year.
It's also a slug heaven so e.g. I tried rocket in pots but it all got eaten.
Beans could be good if they don't get eaten!

It's in code.

Start dealing with slugs now. Don't wait until your seedlings are growing. If you use beer traps or similar they won't be around to lay eggs in the spring to produce even more. Slug bait is being banned I believe but I found that beer traps worked ok.
Go on the RHS website for shade loving plants. The sunny areas should be good for anything really. I think if it's shady rockplants won't flower too well but they should grow ok. I find most herbs like sun too.

Good idea! I didn't find beer traps helpful in our old garden but new garden, new slugs (and we have a lot of birds in our new garden, though now we have a cat...)

I was hoping to have some low growing herbs in the patio spaces but I think we may need to go for something else - definitely alpine strawberries and babies' tears, not sure what else.

Which part is the sun trap?

Would chamomile work for the paving?

You could grow different coloured beans. Depending on the size of the sunny bit a grape vine? We have one and get grapes but it is on South West wall. We do have to cut it back. Blueberry in a pot? Courgettes grow really easily if get sun. You can grow that family upwards too .

I'd be planting ferns along the walls.

Spinach, lettuce etc not too bad in a shady garden.

We use nematodes for slugs. I'm battling the dreaded weevil with them. They have destroyed so many of my plants.

One thing. We have a wall around our garden and we did have to build raised beds because the foundations of the walls really extended out.

There are some lovely pictures on PinInterest of narrow gardens.

Chamomile would be lovely between the paving, great idea!

The sunniest part is the wall that's on the RHs (i.e. the north wall, facing south) in the larger section of the garden.

I am inclined to go for soft fruit if possible as it's less hassle year on year, but I could I suppose have both soft fruit and some vegetables?

I think I can manage some creeping thyme too - part of the paved area is in sun.

We get a good crop of blueberries, and apples and cherries from dwarf trees in pots. You can train small fruit trees against the walk or have step over ones to border that bed.

Wall

Ooh I love the idea of stepover trees!
Can you train blackcurrants? We had a good crop of blackcurrants at our old house but the bushes went mad TBH.

It's a terrace house? (I've always lived in them and the layout looks very familiar )

If so, yes, they're often very shady. I'm sorry I can't make a link, but have a look a bit further back in the forum for the 'shady characters' thread - there's loads of great info there.

Also, one of the best tips I learnt for small gardens is that you'll often have more surface area vertically than horizontally, iyswim. So sort out trellis or wires and then start investigating climbing plants to spread out over the walls but which won't take up a lot of ground area - climbing roses, clematis (lots of different sizes to choose from), all sorts of others. Have a think about wall containers and hanging baskets as well - a tumbler tomato fits well in a 14" basket, for example.

Good luck!

It is s trace yes - I was just looking at wall herb planters in fact!

*terrace.