Garden design/ideas please help

I have a long garden that I would like to improve - I have completely returfed a year and a half ago, and laid some wooden edging (please don't laugh!). My problem is that I am a complete novice and need some help deciding what to do down the left hand side (and all over to improve the overall appearance).

Ideally I would have liked to have a flower border alongside the hedge but I am afraid that it won't get enough sunlight, and that I won't be able to cut the hedge either. We have a northerly facing garden so the left hand side only gets a few hours in the morning.

I can't afford to take down the hedge and put in a fence so that is out. Any ideas/tips would be great. Am trying to reseed some of the patchy areas on my lawn too.

 

If the left hand side is problematic, why not ignore it and concentrate on the other side where you (presumably?) get more sun? Extend the existing flower bed and get some colour in there. But there are plants that will do fine in the amount of sun on that side of the garden - shade loving, such as ferns, bluebells, hostas (although they are better in pots to avoid slugs), hellebores, vinca, ivy, even honesuckle, which could grow through the hedge perhaps? There are lots more, just do a google search for shade loving plants.

As you have a long, thin garden, I would be inclined to divide it up with a low hedge or shrubs, perhaps at the point where that huge tree is. A garden such as you have can actually look longer if divided up once (or more) - I know, as I have one as well! It creates the illusion of space and something beyond, that you cannot see and invites you to explore.

Hope that makes sense!

 

I don't think the shady area is a problem, you only have to find the ideal plants for it. Apart from what Sussexgardener suggested, you might add Astilbes, Aruncus, Astrantias to it to brighten up your border. It can also be divided into, let's say, rectangles along the hedge with grass patches of the similar size and shape so you can get nearer your hedge and diminish the size at the border at the same time. The first patch from the terrace would be planted with low growing ornamental grasses - Hakone grass, as a shade-loving one, or perennials, e.g. Japanese painted fern, Asarum, Lamium, then comes another patch of grass, then some taller perennial in the next - cinnamon fern, Osmunda, then it can go on until past the big Juniper on the other side. There you might switch on to Hydrangeas, among the varieties there's the Everbloom series, that can have flowers during the summer months up to November.

As for the sunnier side of the garden, I'd group a whole lot of low-growing shrubs into border round the Juniper, and if you need a garden path, I'd wind it slantingly, in about 45° in a nice, sweeping curve that also divides the whole garden into two parts - at least, optically. Then you can insert a rose gate even there, where there's a lot more sun and have at the backside a bit of an informal cottage garden.