Looking for ideas

Wookey

I have a small bit of ground at the very end of my garden which never had anything growing in it except weeds, over the years stones, weeds, roots and more weeds have been thrown on it as it has been my dumping ground. As everywhere else in my garden is now taken care of i will have no need to dump any great amount of stuff and i now intend to make some use of this piece of ground.

I'm looking for ideas for this area, its very well shaded as it only will get about 2 hours of evening sun in peak summer, it has a high metal fence behind it which is an eyesore, behind the fence are evergreen trees, to the front there is a small retaining wall about 24" high and there is a slight slope from back to front. Due to the trees overhang it is also quite dry, over the years there has been plenty of decayed garden stuff on it and i expect it to be reasonably decent to grow something in, i would prefer something useful as opposed to decorative. The only idea i've come up with is to throw a lot of herb seeds on it and let them more or less grow wild, the area size is approx 4ft x 15ft.

Mortal

Athough most herbs prefer a sunny site, you can get away with stuff like mint, thyme, sage and chives.
You could grow a clump of comfry to use as a plant feed.

I think if it were me, I'd try to make some sort of screen to cover the metal fence, and cut back the overhanging trees to allow light and rain into the spot. It doesn't matter who's trees they are, you are in your rights to cut off any that over hang. (strictly speaking, you are supposed to hand back the cut off branches, but that rarely makes for good relations lol)

As for climbers, for dry shade, ivy is the first that springs to mind, but I adore clematis, and for me, I'd try a clematis montana, they grow pretty quickly, and have the added bonus of flowers.

LJM

ive just spent a good part of this afternoon cutting back neighbours trees that hang in our garden, you could do herbs/garlic, if you did open the area up you could plant just about anything there

Wookey

The trees and fence are on former army barracks land, there is a housing association taking it over but i don't expect anything much to change other than maybe the trees being tidied up a bit.