Border Plants - Advice needed! 1 May 2020 at 8:37AM in Greenfingered MoneySaving 6 replies 241 views

sha1512

Hi everyone,

I am a complete gardening beginner and am looking for some advice on what to plant in the border at the front of my house. The only plants in there are tulips (I didn't plant them lol) but when they die off the border looks empty. While the tulips are out is the perfect time to plant around them but I have no clue what to put in there. 

The border only gets the sun from around 4.30pm onwards so is shady for most of the day. I would like something that looks nice all year round, maybe flowers during spring or summer, is easy to look after and compliments the tulips when they come out. 

Any help would be gratefully received.

Thanks.

Davesnave

You are looking for plants that tolerate shade better than your lawn is, but if that were my house, I'd put a gravel path next to the building and shift the border out into the lawn area, making it at least 1m wide and preferably a little more.That would remove the possibility of dampness in the walls being encouraged by the plants.

Ideally, you'd have a few structural evergreen plants/shrubs growing there  to keep some interest, even in winter, plus some shade-tolerant perennials like fuchsias, geraniums or astrantias that would come up and flower at different times in the spring and summer. You could then add annuals if there were dull places.

If you Google shade tolerant plants, you'll get info and lists.

Here's one:

https://www.gardenersworld.com/plants/the-best-shade-loving-plants/

Over time, you might get to like your border so much, you do away with what looks like a small lawn that will just be a pain to keep nice and grow lots more interesting plants instead!

Don't rely on the tulips to come back and give you a show again if this is a new house to you. They might, and equally, they might go 'blind.'

Grenage

Regarding shade I've had had success on the north side of a fence with Rhododendrons, camellias, ferns, bluebells, wood anemones, and a Mahonia x Media, and foxgloves.

sha1512

Davesnave said:

You are looking for plants that tolerate shade better than your lawn is, but if that were my house, I'd put a gravel path next to the building and shift the border out into the lawn area, making it at least 1m wide and preferably a little more.That would remove the possibility of dampness in the walls being encouraged by the plants.

Ideally, you'd have a few structural evergreen plants/shrubs growing there  to keep some interest, even in winter, plus some shade-tolerant perennials like fuchsias, geraniums or astrantias that would come up and flower at different times in the spring and summer. You could then add annuals if there were dull places.

If you Google shade tolerant plants, you'll get info and lists.

Here's one:

https://www.gardenersworld.com/plants/the-best-shade-loving-plants/

Over time, you might get to like your border so much, you do away with what looks like a small lawn that will just be a pain to keep nice and grow lots more interesting plants instead!

Don't rely on the tulips to come back and give you a show again if this is a new house to you. They might, and equally, they might go 'blind.'

Thank you for your advice. There's lots of info for us to look at. We are planning on chipping the front garden so will look at making the border bigger. We've lived here for 15 years and the tulips come back year after year which is lovely. We did put in dwarf shrubs on the other side of the L-shaped border, (these are now over 6' tall which I didn't expect lol), along with a couple of plants we transplanted from the back garden, so that side is nice but the border looks awful when the tulips die off.

You've given me lots to think about so thank you again.

sha1512

Grenage said:

Regarding shade I've had had success on the north side of a fence with Rhododendrons, camellias, ferns, bluebells, wood anemones, and a Mahonia x Media, and foxgloves.

Thank you for your advice. There's lots of think about and I'll have a look at the plants you mentioned and see how they would work in the border.

Mojisola

Grenage said:

Regarding shade I've had had success on the north side of a fence with Rhododendrons, camellias, ferns, bluebells, wood anemones, and a Mahonia x Media, and foxgloves.

sha1512 will need to check the soil acidity to see if it's suitable for Rhodos and Camellias - or look around neighbouring gardens and see if anyone else is growing them successfully.

elsien

Think about foliage as well.
I have brunnera and pulmonaria which are spring flowering but some of the leaves can be quite pretty as well the rest of the year. And seem to thrive on a bit of benign neglect.