Planting project: A year-round border the simplest way... using just two different plants

I want to show you the areas of my garden, and perhaps need to do one post for each area – which I’ll get to, I promise… but for now, here’s an area I tackled yesterday.

Progress in the back garden of our new home has leapt on a bit. We extended the kitchen effectively building on the old patio, which was in the shade. Finishing that project meant we could install our new patio in full sun, in time for Summer, lay the turf for the lawns and start planting-up borders with some gusto.

Off the main square patio, we added a little BBQ patio. Which created this oblong area of space that I just wasn’t sure what to do with it’s between the back fence and the house/path to the kitchen…

Behind where I stood to take this picture, there’s a lawn down to a waist height granite wall. On the other side of that is a road. We want this bed to offer a little privacy screening from that road… but without casting too much shadow on the patio where we’ll be sat. I also need whatever goes into this bed to be robust enough to stand up to Cobie running through it or leaping over it – as she will!

So I’m doing something very out of character for me. Instead of cramming it full of herbaceous perennials to fill it with colour, texture and varied heights – I’m showing great restraint and using 10 plants of just two different species: Buxus Sempervirens (Box) and Stipa Arundinacea (Phesant’s Tail Grass.)

I’ve chosen these plants because…

Buxus Sempervirens fits perfectly with the formal design I want for the back garden – which is low maintenance, clean lines, a lush fresh green feel all year round – and as a species it doesn’t mind limey-stoney soil (this area of the garden is harbouring tons of builders rubble just under the surface.), also being clipped they’ll brilliantly contrast to the chaotic free-flowing stipa. Downside: It's just sooooo green and no flowers of note.

Stipa Arundinacea is a great grass. It gets to around 90cm high. Has flowers – inflorescence as they’re called – that are discrete but likeable in late Summer. It’s lighty bladed enough to show movement in the gentlest of breezes, it needs just one hard haircut a year, and it delivers amazing autumn colour…. (as this 'small' pic from the Royal Horticultural Society’s website shows). Downside: If it gets comfy it can decide to self-seed a little too readily. I'll keep an eye on it/them!

I’ve left space for the balls to widen, so they’re not right up to the edge of the lawn or patio – but plan to keep them tightly clipped… and although the Stipas look a little sparse at the moment, they’ll spread to around 60 cms by the end of the year – I hope… and they’ll arch a good deal further.

I'm going to top it off with gravel, like the rest of the borders in this part of the garden and plan to add a few ornamental metal stakes that I took a fancy to when I was covering the Chelsea Flowershow in my ‘day job’. So once I track those down, get the gravel sorted and give this planting scheme has had a little time to grow, I’ll update you with some pics.

Let me know what you think... should I have gone with the busier perennial bed?

Muirgheas
Secret Gardener