• Next question is what sort of style you want - exotic/tropical, cottage garden, formal/architectural, Mediterranean etc. You can get a rough idea of what these mean easily on Google images.

    Will herbaceous perennials that die back completely in winter be ok, or are you looking for deciduous shrubs (which have a woody frame even after the leaves have fallen), or do they need to be fully evergreen?

    Are you more interested in flowers (in which case, what colour scheme) or interesting foliage?

  • lots to think about, isn’t there…

    I’d probably like a bit of colour but not necessarily flowers - foliage is good.

    Have set out below a pic of the garden in summer (from EA ad, so probably over-selling it) and how it looks now (obv a bit worse as winter…).


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  • Looks great, can't see too many gaps! Where would the pots go? If they're just going to go on the earth you might as well get the plants in the ground, less watering and feeding needed and they'll grow stronger. Anything can grow in a pot if the pot is big enough, but pretty much everything will be happier in the ground.

    A bit of repetition is always good instead of having one each of fifty different plants. If there's anything there you particularly like that is doing well there, you could try propagating it, or just buy more, since you know it does well in those conditions.

    Eg. there's a big grass at the back, might be a miscanthus, you could dig it up, divide it into three pieces, stick one back where it was and two elsewhere, they will all grow with renewed vigour.

    You can also fill gaps with annuals that are easily grown from seed - poppies, cosmos, nicotiana etc.

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