"Stonebear" wrote in message
...

Hi I'm a newbie to both this forum and gardening in general.
Having just brought my first house in Hertfortshire I am at a loss at
what to do with my first garden!

With the garden being on an upward hill I have some lawn but mostly
raised decking and no plants (yet!) I would love advice on plants that
are LOW maintenance.

Oh also we need to gain some privacy on either side as the fences are
very low - so tall plants/climbers would be good??

--
Stonebear

Welcome to this newsgroup and to gardening, and congratulations on getting
your first house.

It would be of some help to know what sort of 'look' you want for the garden
and what sort of soil you have. I am on a steep site in SE London on clay
and I find many plants *relatively* low maintenance. Sorry, but you can't
avoid maintenance altogether if you want planting.

For quick partial privacy screening, you could build up the fence height
with trellis. This would give you a great deal of (almost instant) privacy
without stopping too much light, then you could grow/train clematis, roses
or jasmine to cover and green up the fence. For a fairly quick evergreen
climber you could try Trachelospermum jasminoides (I believe it's commonly
referred to as 'star jasmine').

For low level planting, you could try cotoneaster dammerii, lamium, ajuga,
heucheras,
tiarellas, francoa.
For shrubs, try Viburnum tinus, hebes, Hypericum patulum 'Hidcote',
Euonymous 'Silver Queen' (insignificant flowers, but good green/white
variegated foliage); many weigelas and deutzias are attractive but have a
relatively short flowering period. Hardy fuchsias are good for colour in
both sun and partial shade; a reliable easily-obtained form is Fuchsia 'Mrs.
Popple'.
A tree might be good for added height and screening, but without knowing the
size of your garden, I'm going to fight shy of making any suggestions.
This is, of course, just a short list. Do come back and give us all some
more information, and I'm sure the list will grow.

Spider