What would you do with a narrow border?

[Kayemm]

At the front of my house there is a lawn, then a border between the lawn and the pavement, there is no wall.

It's about half a metre wide and 8 metres long. All the border advice I have found by googling seems to presume that a border backs onto a wall with advice about what to plant at the front and back.

I considered a lavender hedge, but think that how it would look in winter would put me off. Someone a few streets away has a small white perennial all along their border and that looks lovely in summer but the border is then bare all winter.

Or do I just turf it?

I’d probably make it wider, but I love gardening. What sort of thing are you hoping for - low maintenance? Evergreen? A mixed border? Is it sunny or shady?

Heuchera. Come with different colour foliage and is evergreen, compact and pretty hardy (at least in my garden). I have a mexican daisy in a similar spot too but it does spread!

I'm a lazy gardener, I always fully intend to deadhead and prune but never actually do.

It's a sunny border. I'd like evergreen.

I've lived in this house for almost 30 years and this bed has never looked good, there are anenomes and azaleas that are nice but there's no summer colour. I have made bad chouces. 😁

I have a lavender border and it still looks good in winter!

Why not go for a total re-design? Instead of having a useless border at the kerbside, have a border up against the house. Carry the turf down to the pavement and put in a barrier to stop people cutting corners across the lawn. You don't want to obscure your lovely new border so make it low (e.g. dwarf hedge) or see-through (e.g. picket fence).
You can then go to town on your new border to give the house that 'welcome home' look and kerb-appeal.

I would have mix, 3 ball evergreens of some kind with 2 dwarfish tall thin evergreens, then interplant with verbena bonariensis and gaura, adding snapdragons from seed each year. Not sure if you can picture that! Or how about something fancy like a row of rose standards with evergreen balls in between?

It's only about 18 inches wide, isn't it? So not really big enough for anything much. You could put in a low hedge of something like variegated euonymus, which is evergreen and slow-growing, so wouldn't need more than the odd trim once a year. There's one called 'Emerald gaiety' which is lovely.

All the border advice I have found by googling seems to presume that a border backs onto a wall with advice about what to plant at the front and back.

Yes, because in gardening terminology, that's what a 'border' is. What you have is more of a flower bed.

'Few shrubs can beat Euonymus for providing constant, robust, evergreen colour and, aside from an annual increase in size, they remain virtually unchanged throughout the year. Many varieties boast bright, glossy foliage that provide a splash of gold like Euonymus fortunei 'Emerald 'n' Gold' or Euonymus fortunei 'Blonde Beauty'. For a more subtle and elegant variegation, try Euonymus fortunei 'Harlequin' which boasts an irregular cream margin to each dark green leaf. These small shrubs reach no more than 1m (3') in height and spread, making useful ground cover, or a handsome evergreen container plant.'