What to fill a large border with? Clueless!

[Crabacus]

We have a large bed which has been fairly ignored and overgrown since we moved into our house a few years ago.
I ve finally got the bed cleared and apart from a couple of peonies and some sort of ornamental thistle, it's now empty and awaiting new plants.
I have not the faintest idea how to design/plant a border! What would be your go-to plant or plants?

Do you want annuals or perennials?
If perennials, why not try plant a few English lavender. They can really bush out and bring beautiful summer colour and scent. Pepper in between with colourful begonias, geraniums, snapdragon, marigold, maybe also Senetti and Dahlia. It will be a riot of colour and fabulous for the bees!

Crocus website sells pre designed borders. You just pick one you like and they send you all the plants and a planting plan. All plants are guaranteed for 1 year and they will replace or refund if they keel over.

Don't just design for the summer. Put in some structure (evergreens / shrubs) for the winter, too.
Also, plan in some height, make it 3D.

Herb garden- looks lovely, easy and you can cook with it!

Rosemary, lavender, thyme, silver sage, mint (in pots), chives etc

Depends on aspect, soil type etc! A herb garden will struggle in a damp shade bed but love a free draining sunny bed!

First find out what pH your soil is, if it's well drained and how much sun it gets before you spend any money.

What's your soil type, what direction does it face, how much sun does it get? You need to answer these questions before you buy any plants.

Not necessarily. Mine is on clay and doing well

Have a look at Gardein on a Roll. I just did an order plants arrived in perfect condition with design to plant to

Try and think about

1. Skeletons - depending on size of border this could be small trees, shrubs or evergreen grasses that are going to give you some year round structure. Then think about adding perennials in between - these are like the muscles and skin. Your bulbs and annuals are a colourful flourish like your make up and can be used to fill in the gaps and add extra interest throughout the year.

2 - Triangles - it can help to plant in such a way that you think about making triangles - so if you have a small tree for example, try and create a triangle in terms of height (tree in middle, smaller plants to the side) and width/floor space - bulk in the middle fading out towards the edges. You can break the border down into sections and repeat these triangle shapes 3 - Right plant right place - work out if you have particular soil (clay, sandy etc.), is it in shade or full sun, what direction it faces. Then if you go on the Crocus website it has a really good filter functionality so you can search by plant type and conditions - i.e. perennial, hardy, west facing, partial shade, clay soil - that should narrow it down to things that will fulfill your criteria. 4 - Think about leaf shapes and structure not just colour - try and go for some things with big broad leaves, some things with lots of smaller leaves, some spiky things etc and put them next to each other for contrast. 5 - Height is really useful. You can add climbers (up pergolas if you don't have a wall) or you can also dot through plants such as bronze fennel, foxgloves, alliums and verbena - they are tall but don't shade things out so you can dot them in between your main planting blocks 6 - Plant in drifts - avoid the temptation to plant one of lots of things especially perennials (you can get away with it more with shrubs and trees which are able to stand out as they have a bit more bulk). Decide on your main perennials (pick say up to five depending on how big your border is), and try to plant them in groups (again three to five plants to a group is a good number depending on size of border). It's also very effective to repeat these groups of plants throughout the border. This brings it all together and you can have some fun planting things in the gaps. 7 Share pictures!!! :-)

ha I knew I'd forget important info! It's backed by a hawthorn hedge rather than a wall. South facing (runs pretty much east-west with hedge on the north side) not entirely in sun all day though as there's a white beam tree a few metres away which shades part of it. Soil is pretty good, not clay but no idea of ph. The peonies do very well, I don't know it they are picky with soil!

I've always wanted a ceanothus so will have to try any get one of those in. Love the idea of it being planned for me, I'll have a look at those!
@Springisintheairohyeah thann you for your very helpful tips, you make it sound easy!
I enjoy gardening and have been happy to nurture what was already in place but I haven't made anything my own yet, it's very exciting

If it's sunny most of the day you could try an iris Germanica hybrid (bearded iris); so many colours to choose from! And an iris sibirica type in the most shaded area. These will flower from around now for about a month or so.

Kniphofia are another fantastic perennial; Many varieties, colours and flowering times.
Heleniums give splashes of bright colour through the summer and as with all the plants mentioned die back so you can underplant with spring bulbs.
Actaea start in august with lovely leaves (some cultivars are almost black or purple) spikes of fluffy white flowers and are perfect for light shade at the back of the border (they can get up to 1.5m tall)
For autumn colour I love sedums (hylotelephium) and the bees and butterflies adore them.

I started many years ago (before computers!) by going through nursery and seed catalogues and just seeing what I liked before working out if it was suitable for the chosen border/plot, generally successful. It is also useful to know which weeds grow well in your garden, as generally plants in the same family will do well - proliferation of buttercups? Geums will do well, Herb Robert? Geraniums -and so on

It is also useful to know which weeds grow well in your garden, as generally plants in the same family will do well - proliferation of buttercups? Geums will do well, Herb Robert? Geraniums -and do on.
@LilyRed
This had never occurred to me before! What a useful insight. Thank you.

Having said that, the other day I heard someone on the radio talking about people who do well despite poor upbringings (especially if, in contrast, their siblings didn't). They described someone as a 'dandelion' i.e. the sort of person who would thrive in any environment!