Please help a gardening dummy

[TickledOnion]

I have a south facing, small front garden with empty borders. I dug up all the weeds yesterday so it looks very bare. I only know how to plant bulbs but all the other gardens in my road have lovely bushy plants that flower in summer and still look green in autumn/winter. Do these take years to grow? I don’t even know what to look for in the garden centre. Is October too late to be planting stuff? I bought loads of bulbs so I’d love to have the bushy plants and bulbs and also lower flowery plants if that is possible.
Can you tell I haven’t got a clue what I’m doing?
Please help. Thanks.

October is the ideal time to be planting shrubs - which is what your neighbours bushy plants will be if they are flowering now but still there in the winter.

If you want something to still be green over the winter then you need to look at evergreens, otherwise plants are called deciduous and lose their leaves over winter then grow some more in the spring.

Your garden is south facing so will be as warm as it's possible to be where you live, so look for plants that will cope in full sun - you'll see the diagram on the plant labels which will also tell you how big they'll grow and therefore how many you need to fit into the space you've got. You might want to put some bulbs underneath them for the Spring whilst you're at it.

A new bare garden is a bit scary but also lots of opportunity to have fun choosing and planting new things. Enjoy!

The soil is still warm in October, so it’s fine to plant now. An easy to care for plant is a Hebe. There are several varieties, mostly quite low growing. They are evergreen, sometimes with variegated leaves. Their flowers, from spring to Autumn, can be white through to deep purple.
Heuchera are another plant that has an interesting range of colourful leaves and delicate flowers.
Sedums (ice plant), easily grown, are in flower at the moment in deep ranges of pink and purple.
Erysimum ( perennial wallflower) flower most of the year round.
Enjoy choosing and planting.

Thank you both, that’s really helpful. I’m so glad I haven’t left it too late. Time for a trip to the garden centre.

You don’t have to fill the whole bed in one go. If you buy a few packets of annual flower seeds like marigolds/calendula and poppies then they can be sown in the gaps now or in spring. They will fill your bed with colour but for one year only (unless you let the seeds drop down for next year). Really useful while you work out what plants you want to buy and wait for them to grow bigger.

Pop your bulbs in at the same time as the shrubs and you’ll have a great display next year.

Thank you.
Can anyone advise if I need to buy topsoil and compost. Thanks

if you're planting in soil that's already there then you don't need topsoil - that's just the name for very clean soil that you add if you don't have any already, or if you're gardening in raised beds or pots.

compost can be useful to "add heart" to the soil - a bit like vitamins and fibre in a human diet! If you're buying shrubs then you can add some compost to the hole at the same time, you'll need to check if your shrub is acid-loving in which case it needs ericaceous compost - it'll say on the label - but for most plants just ordinary compost will be fine.

if you've got a decent garden centre nearby then there will be at least one member of staff who understands plants and who will love helping a new gardener to choose things that are easy to grow, so don't be embarrassed to ask.