I have a very small garden, when we bought the house 4 years ago, it was in
very poor condtion, with many old wiry shrubs, these have eventually all
been removed and most plants are annuals. We will be moving in October and
letting the house out, so ideally I would like to plant a few plants that
will keep things from looking entirely boring and prevent some plants from
taking over the garden.

The current long term plants are chives, mint, oregano and thyme, a patch of
alpine strawberries (which will take over any soil left exposed!), a
climbing rose and two clematis which have not liked the soil, so we are not
too bothered about them!

The main area I would like to place something in is a bed about 4m long by 1
foot wide, close the wall of the house, part of it is in front of a lowish
window, the soil is basically clay, alkaline, fairly well drained and
reasonable quality after a lot of work! Any ideas for cheapish plants I
could pop in there in September?

The other area it would be useful to put something is much more challenging,
2 sections 2 metres long, but only 3 inches wide, soil is sandy in places
and there are several ivy roots still stuck in there. This year I have been
very sucessful with sweet peas in this area. It is also an area very
vunerable to wind.

Cheers

Anne