Roo wrote:
Hi,
living in western australia and out back back patio backs right up to the
hardie fence about 6/9 inches of light coming in, when sun overhead.

We use this area as a family/eating room in the summer and have a six inch
border in breadth running around the bottom about 15 metres. As we use
this area Dec/Mar we are looking for a bit of color, easy maintenance
/propbably native, we have reticulation.

Being an novice with no ideas, would like to have something nice that
attracts attention and conversation. The area is completely fly screened.
I worry as there is not a great deal of sun.

Any ideas appreciated.
Roo


I'm not clear whether you're asking about colourful pot plants to strew
about (love that word!) or a treeish/shrubbish sort of thing to shade
the area.

I've got a beautiful _Buckinghamia celcissima_ (Ivory Curl Flower)
growing alongside a south-facing deck. It has spectacular ivory flower
spikes in the spring, dark green soft foliage and is only a smallish
tree, so great for shade. The flower spikes do drop off once they're
spent, but I s'pose that's true of anything, really...

Here's an URL that shows the tree and a link to the flower close-up:

HTH,

--
Trish {|:-} Newcastle, NSW, Australia