Posted: 14/04/2013 at 23:38
Hiya red dahlia. You have outlined a bed hot, dry n sunny n windy from the east.
Phormiums spring to mind....evergreen and colourful. Red, yellow and striped.
Conifers aren't to everyone's fancy but usually it's because they grow wrong ones. Taxus....yews....are tough, resistant to wind, drought etc. some lovely yellow varieties. my favourite conifers. I grow one called Coppershine....in spring it is a coppery orange and becomes bright yellow in summer. Purple pittosporum....Tom thumb.... Santolinas, which are silver grey scented mounds, lavendars, euonymous emerald n gold. Deciduous plants can offer substance too....woody shapes over winter and loads of flowers in spring n summer like Potentillas, caryopteris with blue flowers, hardy blue salvias, Veronica's, and dwarf berberis with purple foliage.
Penstemons come in a huge range of colours...pinch cuttngs?...pinks have scented flowers over wonderful blue foliage all summer, grasses like stipa Tennuissima with billowing clouds of flowers all summer, hardy geraniums like jolly bee a stunning blue all summer but pink and white colours too. You can make a stunning garden with foliage shapes and colours. As soon as I post this I will think of dozens of plants you can use.....others will add their ideas. Then look up what appeals and put,them,to paper. Tinker with it, change it and imagine it. You won't get it right totally but with most of these plants you can move them or split them
