Persevere or quit?

Heucheras might be good but I don't think coleus will like chill Northern shade and are strictly a June- Sept option anyway.

 

Well, I didn't pull the plug on the project. I persevered. It's now almost done. And I must confess, I'm quite pleased with the results so far now.

The bricks are not exactly even, but that's fine, the look I was going for, which is very hard to describe but I'll have a go, was the 'scruffy place in the back alley where scruffy 1970s kids played marbles and chalks and such'. So its old bricks, uneven, and held in place by years of accumulated dust

Sounds grim, but I like it, and wife approves.

Having put the bricks in place, it looked dire. That's when I was tempted to pull the plug. But then while tidying up, I found an old bag of building sand that had been opened and had discoloured with algae. I swept it into the gaps between the bricks. I also emptied the container I'd last used for mixing cement, and smashed all the old cement to dust, and swept that in too. Now it looks like the bricks have been down forever, which is perfect I just need to get some pebbles now for the back, where there's a gap between the bricks I put down and the house wall (I wanted everything clear of the house wall so as to reduce the risk of damp getting through). That and a few months of whatever the weather does and I reckon it will be just right.