Help me plant a nice garden

[BelfastSmile]

I need garden help. I have a flower bed which is roughly 5m long, and about 0.5m from back to front. It's south facing, with a high fence behind.

We're in Belfast, so doesn't get terribly warm but also not generally too much frost or snow, and a good amount of rain.

Currently it contains a honeysuckle, some fruit bushes (which don't produce much any more), some random bulbs (hollyhocks, I think) and some sweet william plants. It looks vaguely ok, not a complete mess, but I really want it to look nicer.

I'm thinking of removing the fruit bushes and just filling the whole thing with flowers. I just don't really know where to start with choosing them.

Here's what I'd like:

1. to not have to buy new flowers every year. I don't mind buying a few, but I don't want to have to replant the whole thing.

2. colour for a reasonable length of time.

3. not too complicated maintenance-wise. I don't mind weeding, and I'm happy to have a couple of Sunday afternoons per year where I go out and cut everything back, but I never manage if it's one thing that needs pruning one week and then something else gets cut back in October etc.

4. attractive to bees and butterflies and stuff like that.

So, what should I be planting, and when? I assume bulbs need to go in fairly soon? I like things like hollyhocks that are nice and tall, and then smaller things at the front maybe.

Any suggestions welcome!

My white buddleas given me lots of butterflies this year. You have to dead head it & prune it back in spring.

Thanks @Fluffycloudland77 - that looks like it would work!

Erysimum (wallflowers) all the way! Flower for months, and you can get them in beautiful vintage colours.

Thanks @wildflowersandweeds I hadn't thought of wallflowers!

I would draw a plan of the flower bed with the plant you want to keep marked in. I’d then plot in the plants that you might buy. Research the suggestions given, as to their growing conditions, height and season of interest. That way you will get a succession of interest and have the plants growing in the right places.
You already have honeysuckle on your fence, how about a climbing rose to join it?
Hebes come in different varieties and sizes, they are evergreen and the bees love their flowers.
Cranesbill geraniums also come in varieties and sizes, some like Rosanne flower all summer. Echinacea are another late flowering plant with a huge variety of colour.
It’s the time to plant spring bulbs, tulips, daffodils, crocus, Allium and
Anemones.
The garden centres will also have Hellebores for sale soon, they give winter interest.
Whilst Hollyhocks are lovely, they like poor, dry soil and a lot of sun.

Cat mint, spreads in the summer, dies out in the winter, loads of purple flowers, millions of bees. Takes a couple of years to establish but then is quite ground filling all summer.

Do you have a Morrisons? Morrisons if really good for cheap (like £2 cheap) shrubs, cottage flowers, bushes etc that are very resilient and come back each year. All my expensive garden centre ones did never to be seen again.

Hollyhocks don't come from bulbs.
I find echinacea fussy and haven't ever managed to get them to be perennial so have given up.

I am almost set up with a cottage garden- things that seem reliable are Centaurea, Lychnis coronaria, Aquilegia, Penstemon, Hylotelephium (which is still Sedum to me), Lunaria (honesty), Phlox

I get a lot of my plants from local garden centre 'search and rescue' bench where they're past their best for that season but fine the following year.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll look into them!

Sometimes it’s easier if you choose a colour scheme. That’s what I did this year, it was purple/white and must be bee friendly.

Lots of flowering plants die back meaning the space will be bare in winter.

Consider some height and structure from evergreens. Yew columns are my favourite.

Also some lower evergreen stuff, like azaleas that flower in early spring. They have a lovely habit and give amazing colour displays.

Then ground cover.

Spring bulbs can be planted now.

And the fence could take a Boston ivy. They give a glorious dioaly of autumn colour, your fence will look like it's on fire for a couple of months and it doesn't interfere with trees or other plants, unless you want climbers.

Then think about the perennial stuff that flowers. At this time of year rudbeckia looks amazing.

Happy gardening!

OP I'm near enough to you and Homebase and B&Q have good sales on. I have a similar sounding flower bed although it is not south facing so wouldn't get as much sun. I have about 6 herbs planted that are lovely in the summer for purples/pinks; 3 different varieties of thyme, 2 sage plants for all year green, a purple hebe which is evergreen and gives height and a lovely pink sedum which gives height/colour at this time of the year and dies back in the winter. In the spaces I plant bulbs for spring colour; mostly blue muscari which looks lovely against all of the green of the other plants (which haven't flowered yet)
I don't do any high maintenance gardening as I don't have the time and other than weeding every few weeks the plants just look after themselves. The thymes are good spreading plants but not invasive, in the summer the bees spend a lot of time on them.

Forgot to say in the summer when the bulbs have died down I do buy red/pink geraniums to fill in the spaces. I don't get away on summer holidays and these always remind me of the Med so it's a very second best :-)