A friend has recently moved to a house with a rather neglected garden. To earn a few brownie points I offered to take on the project of trying to get the garden back in shape.

After some serious strimming and hacking we discovered a fairly decent path and patio area. We decided to leave the path as it was - mainly as it created a good edge to the side that we wanted to make into a border.

The right side of the garden we already knew was going to be grass for her football addicted daughter to use. The grass was not in particularly good condition though. We have tried to weed and feed but it has definitely passed its best so we will start again with a new lawn in the autumn.

The border side is a sunny sheltered spot. It’s easy to get carried away when shopping for your garden but there is no point wasting your money on plants that are just going to struggle if you put them in the wrong position and soil type.

The plants I picked for for the border had to be able to cope with a fair amount of intense heat. For the back of the border, larger shrubs were needed so I went for a seasonal mix of kerria japonica, forsythia, pittosporum, hydrangea, weigela, hypericum, ribes and hibiscus.

For the rest of the border I wanted to try and create interest throughout the seasons. To do this I opted for papaver (poppies), crocosmia lucifer, coneflower echinacea multicolour, salvias, sedums, iris and eryngiums.

I had to add a few of my favourite grasses - pennisetum and carex - and of course a scattering of the pretty purple, long-performing verbena bonariensis.

A lavender edging to the path finished things off neatly.

All that’s left for me to do is to choose a few climbers to grow up the back wall. I’ll probably go for a mix of clematis, honeysuckle and passion flower. Then I’ll plant some bulbs in the autumn so that they create amazing displays in the spring.

My finally job was to top dress the whole lot with some bark to help mulch. This should help keep the weeds down and mean less maintenance and more deckchair time!