Suggestions on what plants to use to fill these gaps please?

I'm hitting a wall with what to plant in the shady part of my garden at the moment. This part of the garden is the other half's and he wants to have "lots of daisies and blue flowers" in it. The trouble I have is that again there isn't much height to it.

I've broke this down into 4 areas so I can give a bit more detail on each one as the soil conditions seem to go from one extreme to another. (Please excuse the messy lawn)



This area has currently gets sun most of the day and a small amount in the winter. Working along the trellis from right to left I have a lavender (he likes them), 3 Salvias, a Choisya Sundance, Bleeding heart (which I will be moving in the winter, as he doesn't like it) and a ceanothus behind this and the bird table. I have a honey suckle and a clematis montana growing up the trellis too. The issue I have is that I don't know what to plant along the hedge. The soil here is extremely dry and I would say it receives sun for about 5 hours everyday. I have some comfrey which I leave for the bees and would like to have something along the hedge that grows to this height. The other issue I have is access to cutting the hedge. The rest of the hedge has a small path running along side it so I can reach it, but Dave wouldn't allow this in his bed, any suggestions on how to overcome this?



This part of the border is usually in deep shade with really thick clay soil, so gets quite sticky when it rains. I've been putting leaf mould down every year in an attempt to open it up a bit but the following plants seem happy here. I've got a buddleja Empire Blue growing in the top right corner, not sure what the plant is in front but it has little daisy like flowers on it (which he likes) and them some ladies mantle and some ferns. I think there needs to be a bit of height at the back of this bit of the bed next to the log fence, but am not sure what would be happy here. Also I think a few of the gaps need to be filled with a few plants at the front too.



The next bit is along the front of the workshop. This bed has really bad soil, thick clay with lumps of plaster (yes it was plaster in the end and not asbestos) in it. It has full shade throughout the whole day. I've tried growing a Fatsia here but it doesn't seem too happy with its conditions.I would like to grow something tall, ideally over 4' high, like some shrubs, but am not sure which ones.



The final bit is the part I struggle with the most. I have roughly 6-10inches of bed to work with here. I planted a spotted Laural as I didn't know what else to plant here and have a very unhappy bamboo next to the workshop door. Further along I have two blue hydrangeas, which are not really putting on a great amount of growth and I suspect it's due to the soil being quite dry here. This bed goes from heavy clay soil to dry, more normal clay soil about halfway through. I have suggested to Dave something like Hebes would fill out this border more quickly, but he says he doesn't like Hebes. I already have 3 buddlejas and don't really want to add anymore to the garden, but would like something that would perhaps give that sort of height but without causing a huge amount of spread as I have such a small area to work with.This bed gets some evening sun but the bit where the spotted Laural is, gets none at all.

Some help or ideas would be really appreciated.

 

Ideal for Salvia then. S.patens and Salvia "Black and Blue" spring to mind.

Tricyrtis hirta to fill in the gaps at the front maybe?

 

I think the Hydrangeas would prefer to be in a damper, less sunny aspect JJ? Feverfew( if he likes daisies) can grow quite tall and isn't too fussy about Grade A soil.
Jenny

 

Brilliant idea. Anymore suggestions on what to mix in with them? I was thinking of using some Ox eye Daisies but wondered if there were any other daisy like plants that would be better suited to this area.

I will get back to you on that one and see what he thinks. I personally like it though.

I'm confused now, because my neighbour across the road has massive hydrangeas and they are in full sun most of the day. For some reason I thought they do like full sun.

It turns out I already have some of this, but would like to produce more. Whats the best way to propagate more plants?

 

I would widen the border somewhat - so the plants have less competition from the lawn.

Ceanothus going to do any good there?

 

Feverfew will set seed profusely in late Autumn and the emerging seedlings are unmistakably lime green. You should have more than enough next year JJ,
Jenny

 

Ceanothus he is a fan of. How much wider would you make the bed? I presume you mean the one that hugs the fence?

Not bad for 50p then.

 

Depends how much area you need the lawn?. plants will do a lot better in a wider bed and it would be easier to have more than "one row" of plants with which to disguise the fence - a deeper border in essence. No idea if it suits what you want to do though.