planting ideas for a raised bed (east facing)

[mrsglowglow]

My lovely Dad has made me a smallish raised bed about 4ft x 2ft from decking boards that I've painted in a seagrass colour. I'm a novice gardener and wish to plant with interest all year if possible with colourful flowers and shrubs and bulbs but unsure how to plan it. It's sitting under our front window and gets sun in the morning. I looked at the gardening on a roll but really couldn't spend that much so any ideas would be great. Also would it be best to wait now until Autumn before planting?

You could fill it with heathers - different ones flower at different times of the year, and there's lots of varieties and colours of foliage. They do need ericaceous compost, though, unless people's garden's around you have heathers, rhododendrons and blue hydrangeas, in which case your garden soil will probably be OK. Erica carnea varieties are more tolerant.

Otherwise, try a couple of small evergreen shrubs, and plant more colourful things around them according to season. Spring bulbs would be tricky because you'd disturb them every time you switched the colourful plants.

If you want something now, try getting hold of some nasturtium plants - they would romp away and give lots of orange or red flowers through the autumn.

Thank you so much for those ideas. I'm going to look at getting a few heathers.