Hello, very novice gardener looking for some advice on plants to complete my garden in few spots. Bought a house 8 years ago with a very neglected garden. It didn’t have any planting areas so we dug borders in and slowly have started filling them. Lots of mistakes made! I like cottage garden style plants and relatively low care as I don’t have much spare time due to work/young family. The soil is quite good but a bit chalky.
Full sun spot- flowering shrub. It will be towards the back of the border so a bit of height and ideally something that flowers for a while rather than a few days and it’s all over. It will be next to a Kerria japonica (yellow pom poms), I considered salvia hot lips but I’m not hugely keen on the colour and when I went online I got so overwhelmed at the choice. Does anyone have something they love?
Climber- roots in shade but once it gets established the trellis higher up gets a lot of sun. I’m confused about this as once the plant reaches a certain size it will get lots on sun but should I search for a shade loving plant so it survives to reach that size? I’ve already tried a clematis but it died, one of my failures. It will be on the fence separating us from neighbour with a lot of space to cover.
If you can suggest any other smaller plants as well to put towards the front of my full sun border that would be great, I usually fill with annual bedding plants like marigolds and nasturtiums but I am always on the lookout for ideas.
No lupins or delphiniums please, tried both more than once and they got annihilated by slugs.