"Julie Clark" wrote in
:


Box plants are a nice shape and are very tolerant of shade, for
example. Or baby phormiums have attractively coloured leaves, and are
a nice striking pointy sort of shape (though they will outgrow your
pots in time).

Thanks Victoria
I've heard of box (will wonders never cease?!) but not phormiums - I
assume they are readily available through most garden centres?

Yes - look in the 'architectural plants' section if there is one. Sort
of spiky things with pink or stripy leaves.

I also
assume I'd be buying plants as opposed to seeds or bulbs or something?
Is now the right time to put these sort of things in or do you think I
should wait until a few weeks before I put the house on the market?

If you are planting established plants, go along now and choose what you
fancy, or leave it till March and you'll see a wider selection in some
places.

I deliberately didn't suggest seeds or bulbs:

- bulbs because they do look great when they are flowering, but most
don't flower for all that long, then you do need to find somewhere to
hide the straggly leaves. Good if you don't mind whipping things out
and swapping in new things as they go over though.

- not seeds because you want something easy and low-maintenance, and
you haven't much experience, so you might not get the best results on
your first attempt.

Many plants are pretty easy from seed - Rusty's suggestion of
nasturtians is a good one - but I'm not sure you'd have them flowering
and giving just the right effect by April, specially if there's a late
frost, and given that the area doesn't get much direct sun. I think
alyssum will want more sun than you can offer, and lobelia will keel
over if you forget to water it.

You really want something that will look really good from 1st April
through till July if it has to, and not collapse if you forget to water
it once in a while, or if there is a cold wind.

Spending 20-30 quid on a few more established plants isn't much if it
saves you time and effort when you are furiously painting, cleaning, and
arranging things in front of that odd patch on the carpet ;-)

Victoria