Hello,

We're not good gardeners. We have a courtyard/town garden which we recently
had block paved (with full drainage).

We're planning on putting in a large wooden planter (2.5m long, 40cm wide
and 50cm deep.

I went on one site and it said we would need 1 ton of topsoil to fill it!

Can we put stuff at the bottom of it so we need less soil? Does it need to
be top soil or is multipurpose compost ok?

We are thinking of having a couple of lavenders in it and a hardy perennial
(?) and perhaps something else ... but nothing that grows more than say
...... 75cm wide and 75cm high.

We want things that are low/zero maintenance, provide all year round colour
and flower sometime in the year.

Ideally we'd like to do it in the next month or so .... but is it something
we should leave to do next spring??

Your expert advice appreciated.

Phil