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Good plants for low-maintenance interest
Q I have a narrow grass bank above the retaining wall of my patio. How can I make it more interesting without having to do too much work as it’s quite hard to access?
Mildred Hughes, via email
A There are plants which you can just leave to their own devices, but most do better for some care so that perhaps needs to be factored in, especially for the first year or two after planting.
I chose a mixture of shrubs, all of which could be bought bare-rooted making it much cheaper to plant the whole thing in one go.
We had purple-leaved berberis (), shrubby honeysuckle (, both the straight species and the cultivar ‘Baggeson’s Gold’), shrub roses () and flowering currant ().
