Here's my take: Summary: You have a garden, you have no gardening experience, your girlfriend would either like some flowers in the garden or, perhaps, for the garden to look like a garden. You are away, for prolonged periods. You perceive that you would like a low maintenance garden. Not unreasonably, given your lack of skill, you don't know what sort of soil you have. Q1. A photo of the plot would help - perhaps one from an upstairs window as well as from a normal "standing" pose. Q2. When you go out of the house and face the garden which way (N, S, E or W?) are you facing? Q3. Would your girlfriend tend the garden? Part of that question is "Is she in the house when you are away" - i.e. would be able to do some weeding (if only occasionally there) or do some watering (if there more often). I'll assume that you could do any heavy work - e.g. "creating" the garden, so my question is about maintenance. Q4. Would you be prepared to pay someone to look after the garden for you - so you just have the enjoyment of it? Is it the sort of thing where if you had a nice garden you could then take advantage of it - e.g. by having a BBQ party in the garden each/some/most weekends? I'll wait for the photos before making suggestions as I don't want to assume bombsite / etc. as it will take time to give advice based on that, and that's a bit pointless until we can see the size/state of the problem.
I think things are getting overcomplicated here. It is perfectly possible to find tough plants that will succeed for most people in circumstances of neglect, so Beecee's requirements are not out of the question by any means. We probably should make the assumption that it is a reasonable patch of soil seeing as it used to be a veg patch, probably fairly sunny because Beecee said so, and fairly fertile because the weeds are doing well. So things have failed in the past - seeing as things fail even for experienced gardeners who have done everything they should (as I'm sure we all know) we shouldn't be too surprised if things fail for a complete novice. It is just a question of the right plant in the right place and giving it just enough care to keep it going. Probably many of us learnt our gardening through trial and error, also. I know I did. Some of us come to love it by these means. So a list of bombproof plants - lysimachia punctata, say - and basic instructions are what is needed here, IMO. Let us know when you've been shopping, Beecee!
