Revamping border & looking to add some purple

Hi,

The garden at the front of my house is not looking great, especially this relatively small border which is next to the driveway.





The plant in the middle is a dwarf cherry blossom tree ("Kojo No Mai"). Until recently, there was a cottoneaster horizontalis on each side of it (plus some old tree roots from conifers the previous owners had planted) and sedum "dragon's blood" as ground cover.

I wasn't happy it though, so a few days ago I removed the cottoneaster horizontalis, managed to get out the old tree roots, enriched the soil and planted two bareroot roses on each side of the Kojo No Mai. I also removed some of the groundcover sedum until I decide whether I want to get rid of it completely.

I am now trying to complete the scheme. I like the idea of moving two festuca grasses that I already have to this border and considering the border is not very deep, this is what I have come up with:



The purple plants are salvia caradonna. Except..I'm not too crazy about salvias. I like the flowers but the foliage not so much.. I would not hesitate to use them if they would be in the middle of a deeper border, but here they would be at the front.

Do you have any alternatives to recommend? Or different ideas altogether.

Some alternatives I have already considered:

• Lavender: I love lavender but it wouldn't really go with the arrangement in the rest of the garden.
• Catmint: I'm sorry, but to me this looks even worse foliage-wise than salvias, as if it's a weed. Plus, some cats in the neighbourhood already treat the front garden as their VIP toilet I'm sure it looks lovely in the middle of a border, where you can only see the flowers coming through.
• Hardy geranium: I haven't ruled them out...
• Purple sedum/stonecrop/hylotelephium: I love them, but I think what is needed is a cooler purple/blue, plus it's an exposed position and they may not do very well with the wind.

Another option would be to stick with the salvias and either accept them for what they are, or squeeze in a very small foliage plant in front of them?

Thank you.

 

One of the more compact varieties of blue hardy geraniums would go well there. I'll leave it to people with more experience to recommend specific varieties - you don't want a really sprawly spready one there. They all look purple-ish blue to me, but not quite as purple as the salvias. Or you might like the shrubby salvias better than the herbaceous ones like Caradonna. S. Mirage Deep Purple is a nice fairly compact one.

 

Thank you @JennyJB I might have another look at hardy geraniums.

 

I like the purple of Salvia Caradonna but the flowers don’t really last that long and if you remove them you get much smaller flowers that make little impact. As @JennyJB says, a shrubby Salvia is another option. Despite the name, Salvia Cherry Lips is not a cherry colour, more purple, with a white tip if it gets sun and a robust long flowering plant. Achilleas may also be worth considering. Geranium Rozanne is a good performing blue hardy geranium, G. Azure Rush is another option, a softer lilac blue and more compact.

 

Thank you @Plantminded

 

I recommend that you don’t dismiss all Nepetas @CostasK. There are some compact varieties with a high proportion of flower to foliage so you don’t see much of the foliage. I grow N. Purrsian Blue and N. Cats Pajamas, terrible names but long flowering, easy plants and quite adaptable to position. Bees love them and my neighbour’s cats ignore them .

 

Thanks again @Plantminded I will happily consider them with the option of having a smaller foliage plant in front of them so that there isn't as much focus on foliage when not in flower.

I also love the look of Lithodora Diffusa "Grace Ward" based on photos I see online, but it prefers acidic soil I believe (mine is neutral). The photo below was just found online:

 

How about some Erysimums, like Bowles Mauve?

 

Thank you @Escarpment That's also a good suggestion. The length of the flowering period is particularly impressive! And it seems that the foliage might be nice and bushy even when the blooms die back. Hmm...

 

Thanks again for your recommendations everyone. I thought I would provide an update in case anyone reading this thread is curious.

I went through the key options with my partner and he loved the option that I also had a soft spot for (lithodora). Some of the other options (catmint/elyssium/hardy geraniums/shrubby salvias) are probably better options objectively, but the subjective nature of gardening has won this time

I am also conscious that when I created this thread, I was asking for an upright/bushy plant with purple flowers and ended up with a blue-flowering ground cover But I believe that by changing the positioning, it can work. Here is the updated plan for the border:




On the plus side, lithodora is evergreen and the 2 festuca grasses that I already have, look OK during winter. Which means that the border shouldn't look completely dead then.