Recommend me two plants please

[WestminsterCrimes]

Help please! I need ideas for my front garden. It's North facing, gets a fair bit of sun from the west in the afternoon. Clay soil but will put a big bag of compost in as needed to loosen things up when we plant this area.

We already have a big bush rose with pale yellow flowers that's doing well, a lavender border which is happy (we amended soil a lot for this for drainage) another rose which I didn't plant and wouldn't have chosen which is bright orange, and a white lilac. Bits of verbena here and there, some peonies and lots of creeping geranium type thing with pale yellow flowers which I'm taking out now it's flowered but it always comes back. I have a gap big enough for two plants and I want them to be substantial and hardy, good for bees and insects, and basically clearly defined enough to hold the space so I won't accidentally weed them out in the spring. The idea is it's a slightly wild bee garden but it's currently got a gap that's too wild and needs some chosen plants. Ideal dimensions would be about 50c-60m wide and with some height to balance the other half of the garden which is all about 1m high. One plant could be lower. Thanks!

You could think about a weigela as one of them, often pink but I think some other colours are available. Some also have variegated leaves too, there's quite a range to

Hardy, easy to look after, quite vigorous but can be cut back to fit your space. They flower quite early and the bees go bonkers for them.

It won’t be a Geranium if it’s yellow. Possibly a Geum?

In a similar position I have some hollies, both variegated and plain, all of them female and berrying (so there must be a male nearby), one with yellow berries; Skimmia var Reevesiana, which self fertile so I get berried as well as sweetly scented white flowers in spring; Gaultheria mucronata, currently about 2m high, one with red/pink berries, the other with white. All these are evergreen. I also have a winter flowering bush honeysuckle, a weeping crab, a Magnolia stellata - but this will get big.

A Pulmonaria? Flowers in early spring, great for Queen Bumblebees coming out of hibernation & loved by the Hairy Footed Garden Bee (looks like a black bumble). They often have spotty leaves for a bit of interest. Perennial so come back each year.
Other possibilities:
Foxgloves
Nepeta
Salvia
Hellebore
Saracocoa (fragrant box)

How about a Choisya, Mexican Orange, they’re evergreen, have lovely white scented flowers and are easy to keep compact.
Or a variety of Hebe, they come in a wide variety of sizes and bees love the flowers.
If it’s spreading lower growing plants that you want Persicaria is a good bet, once again insects love it.

Ooh thanks for the ideas! I'll look them all up. I'd got as far as maybe a Hebe and a Daphne but now lots of lovely things to consider

@MereDintofPandiculation maybe geum, just looked it up, doesn't look quite like it but there are lots of types so maybe. It has hardy geranium type leaves and small yellow buttercup flowers. I didn't put it in, it's just appeared in the last couple of years and is rather nice for a bit in spring.

I've had foxgloves and nepeta and alliums out there but they didn't come back- possibly because I am clumsy with weeding, possibly because the clay soil is too heavy. I also had a Russian sage amongst various other things that died leaving this big gap. There are snails that I don't want to do battle with so I avoid anything they'd enjoy munching.

I hadn't considered Holly or Pulmonaria, will have a think!

I see wigelia mentioned so thought I’d add potentilla tolerates a hard cut to maintain whatever size you want, there are color options and wild bees are often on ours. Flowers all non stop.

You could try rosemary - if you keep it well clipped! Bees love the flowers in my garden and it’s impossible to kill once it’s established … if it gets unruly take cuttings and grow new plants and abandon the old one.

Dwarf Buddleja.

The yellow flower sounds as if it could be Wood Avens, Geum urbanum

Foxgloves are biennial, seed to small plant in first year, flower second year and then often die. You get a perennial display of foxgloves by recognising the first year seedlings and not pulling them up.

I would try a mini buddleja (make sure it is genuinely a compact one) and how about a hypericum? Tough as old boots, lovely foliage, flowers and berries, and will cope with shade and clay

Salvia hot lips - pink and white
Sedum Iceburg - white
Heuchera - lots of rich colours.

Wood avens yes that's it @MereDintofPandiculation It's a nice carpet in spring but I tend to take it out around now as it doesn't seem to care and comes back every year.

and yes I was hoping the foxgloves would come back as per their schedule but it's the noticing them and weeding around them that I struggle with. I don't do well with things that need noticing when they are small.

Thanks everyone for the fabulous suggestions I'll read up on all of them before deciding and send you a photo when I've put them in 🙂

Hollyhocks or teasels for height
Ox eye daisies