Rob wrote:
Right , I know nothing about gardening , and nor to be honest , do I want to
. ( well , not too much anyway !!! )

snip

I am only a little more experienced - though a great deal more
interested - than you... and I have just done a raid to purchase some
spring planteables for summer colour.
This time of year, you can get oodles of summer/autumn flowering plants
as bulbs or bareroot plants. All you need to do to work out what
colour, what distance and where in the bed is to read the label -
shorter plants to the front of the border, taller ones to the back. If
you plant densely (but within reason), you'll have less room for
weeds...
Last year, I planted dahlias around this time. I picked a pink/purple
colour scheme, including both cactus (spiky petals) varieties and
pompon ones. And from July to December, we had non-stop flowers,
enough to cut and bring indoors every few days while still having a fab
display outside. Gladioli are good too, especially those that are a
little more refined than the big tall bold coloured ones (own tastes
here). Montbretia are also great, because when not in flower
(Jul/Aug/Sept), they keep a good clump of lush green leaves.
And then, you can always just scatter seeds of annuals around the
place. One of my fav for value for money and minimum maintenance are
nasturtiums (good only in a orange/yellow/red colour scheme - although
they looked very cool against my purple verbena). And the flowers are
edible in al fresco summer salads...
You probably need to think of putting more than just perennial or
annual flowers in your borders, though, otherwise you will have a very
boring garden for 8 or 9 months of the year. Next Autumn, go mad on
spring flowering bulbs - they too are a fab good value investment.
Plant once and forget - hey presto, display each spring.
You should also put in a few ever green small shrubs, adn a few winter
flowering ones, like some viburnums, mahonia, witch hazel, etc. Anyway,
you get the idea. Also, in Autumn/Winter, you could include a few
pansies and primulae for winter and early spring colour.
If you want cheap anything, make friends with the neighbours, and
exchange cuttings and saved seeds. Or try Lidl and Aldi this time of
year. Or check out the sales in your garden centre - regrettably
passed now.
Good luck! Be careful, you could soon be bitten by the gardening bug.

Cat(h)