Help me plan my garden

[Twoshoesnewshoes]

We’ve cleared big bit of garden that was mainly overgrown shrubs and bamboo.
we’re looking to get a mini digger into turn it over and take stumps out.
its an area around 15’ x 15’, sunny, drying soil, not sandy or peaty.
its in front of a living room window so some year round interest would be good.
what can I plant? Shall I have areas of lawn, shingle?
it’s adjacent to an area of lawn and a patio.

Here’s the diagram

It looks like a sunny position. A basic rule of garden design is (a) decide what you like and (b) put that thing in the sunny spot. So ... what would you like? outdoor kitchen, water feature, herb garden, border, etc, etc. Or build, say, a bigger entertaining space and relegate the patio to having a different function.

It might be an idea to design something round to match / echo the patio - a border or a brick edging, where the arc of the 'something' intersects the circle of the patio. These gives some idea of what I'm talking about. circles. houzz

How do you get there? - there is no mention of a path.

Oh thank you @senua I love the idea of the intersecting circles. I was trying to think how to use the existing circle but not mirror it so this is great.
hmmmmmm maybe a cottage garden… we have several seating areas already, so don’t need more, would like a herb garden but this garden is at the front away from the kitchen.
i have two ponds already 😂
maybe a sundial?

I would go to the garden centre in spring, summer, autumn and winter and buy something each time that is looking beautiful.
Having said that I think I would always try and squeeze in a rose in any new space - I just love them.

That’s a great idea
i have a couple of blueberry bushes in pots too, wondering if I should move those into the new border?

@Twoshoesnewshoes blueberries need ericaceous soil so it depends on what soil you have.

Given this area is near a window I'd be tempted to plant something fragrant, roses would be great.

Do you plan on growing a climber on the fence? Clematis would be lovely. I have a potato vine and it's flowered all summer but is a bit of a thug so you need to keep it in check.

For a sunny spot lavender is reliable and the bees love it too. Cistus is another plant that does well in full sun and is drought tolerant which is helpful when you have a hosepipe ban..

Kojo-no-mai is lovely in spring and I like how it looks in winter too. Or for a bit of winter colour you could have red dogwood along the fence.

You could also plant ornamental grasses. I have a few and I leave the seed heads on over the winter and they look pretty all covered in frost.

Thank you - I’ll look up kojo-no-mai! The fence is covered in a jasmine and a Virginia creeper, both very well established so that’s good.

As for the planning itself, have you considered giving a landscape planning tool a try? There are plenty of them like https://gardenbox3d.com/ or similar ones, or AI planners like https://www.edraw.ai/. You can move elements around to see how it would look like and have a "walk" around your future garden. It comes in really handy when you don't have the exact idea of how the frawn plan would end up in real life. We used both when we were working on our garden recently and it helped a lot.