My front garden has a small border filled with lots of very well established shrubs: forsythia, quince, berberis, rose, witchhazel, mahonia, azalea. They're not my choice but they've been there for a very long time and I won't be able to dig them out. There are some very spiky customers in there and some are very woody at the base. I despair of them really.
There's a bit of border in front if them which is dominated by river lillies and Japanese anenome. There's also some small roses, nepeta and salvia I've put in front of them.
I now want to make the border deeper with a view to planting the whole grassed going one strip at a time over the next few years. The whole thing including grass is on a slope about 6m by three (less a bit where our front steps are). It's heavy clay, fairly neutral (slightly acid) south facing, no shelter.
I'm thinking of letting the anenome and river lilly just take over the current border which is less than a metre wide and moving the nepeta etc then planting in front about another metre.
I've got some plants that could go in already : Alchemelia mollis, hardy geranium and stachys, small roses (the Fairy). Do you think this is a good idea? I'd life some dwarf evergreen shrubs to go in between them and am thinking of dwarf weigela and eponymous.
What do you think of my plan or what would you do instead? I'd be very grateful for any help. I'm not a very experienced gardener and I'm just going round in circles planning it.