Shrubs & Plants

[samwi123]

Hi there

We have a relatively small garden which we have just had a new lawn laid with a border running each side of the garden. The border is laid with sleepers and is about 40cm wide - 3m long each side. We would prefer some evergreen shrubs and perennials but I’ve noticed a lot of shrubs tend to get quite wide, are there any that you would recommend that tend to not get too wide? We are on a sandy/clay mix type of soil here, morning sun one side, afternoon sun the other.

Salvias are evergreen, I have a 'hot lips' salvia in my garden. It's super hardy and looks beautiful all year round. It copes with my sunny/shady garden. I also have three ornamental grasses dotted around my garden, they are always interesting and easy to care for too.

You could also get some Verbena to plant around any grasses to give some lovely colour in the spring/summer.
Bulbs are brilliant and keep coming back of course. Alliums are so beautiful and are like puff balls in the summer.

If the turf has only just been laid, you need to keep off it for a good while now.

Some shrubs to consider would be cotoneaster and euonymus, both easy and grow anywhere, and both very amenable so you can prune them and keep them basically any shape you want. Both can be trained up walls or fences as well.

Dwarf azaleas- beautiful flowers in spring and early summer, evergreen foliage. I have some which are 15 years old which are maybe 1.5 ft tall and not much wider. The bees love them!

I think over time nearly all shrubs get bigger. But you can prune them, even rhododendrons. You could prune them a bit each year by cutting about half the stems right back, then the next year do some more, or all the ones which weren't cut depending on how quickly it grows.
Sarcococca is evergreen, doesn't grow very tall but spreads. There are some evergreen azaleas, rhododendrons come in dwarf sizes.