Plant recommendations

[Bananarama83]

Hello, I am hoping someone here might have some ideas, although I may also be looking for the impossible.

I have a small, east facing front garden, south coast, acidic, surprisingly loamy soil.

By the front door, I have a small bed 1m deep. Annoyingly there is a porch gutter that discharges into the ground adjacent to this - it largely runs away so not waterlogged but plants need to like water. It currently has a very unhappy shrub rose in it. I have tried over the years to rehabilitate it, but it barely grows irrespective of how much I feed/water/mulch/prune it.

I am thinking of removing the rose and replacing it. Ideally I would like something with Winter interest/colour and either wall-trainable or upright growing. If it wasn't east facing, I'd probably be looking for an Autumn flowering Camellia Sasanqua. A climbing hydrangea is probably too vigorous for the lime mortar. I'd love a Chaenomeles but they don't flower until the Spring. Perhaps a regular, compact hydrangea with a winter flowering clematis or Alpina behind?

Does anyone have any other ideas??? Existing garden is very cottage garden in style. Thank you!

My neighbour has a winter-flowering jasmine in a very similar spot.

Annoyingly there is a porch gutter that discharges into the ground adjacent to this - it largely runs away so not waterlogged but plants need to like water.
Can you collect the rain in a water butt, hidden behind whatever shrub you choose?

Suggestions from RHS and GW.

Ooh! Both really good ideas, thank you.

Pieris Forest Flame?

A hydrangea would be happy there so I’d go for that.

At only 1m deep an ordinary hydrangea will get far too wide. There are smaller types that are meant for pots (such as the Garden Lights series), though they will only get to about 1m in height too. What about wall-training a Pyracantha? Berries in autumn/winter & flowers in spring? Have a look at Kate Coulson's account on Instagram for the fab shapes she's trained hers into!

A Japanese quince will start to flower as early as February, especially Nivalis or Pink Lady. And they often repeat-flower a little bit through the year. Other good wall shrubs with winter interest are, as mentioned: Jasminum nudiflorum; Garrya - evergreen with dramatic tassel-like catkins; Chimonanthus praecox aka Wintersweet; & the shrubby honeysuckle Lonicera 'Winter Beauty'. The latter two are perfumed & have delicate flowers on bare branches in late winter/early spring.

Unless there is some new-and-improved version, I'm not sure about Japanese quine. They sucker horribly.

Thank you all, lots there I hadn't considered or heard of.