If your looking for a high end look then why not try our Woburn artificial grass a real winner with a real softness feel. If you would like a selection of our samples contact richard@quickgrass.co.uk. Have approved installers or can fit yourself happy to talk project through. Here we see our Woburn used in this family home fitted R J Landscapes Oldham. Here we see a traditional garden again using Woburn fitted by Landscapia based in the midlands .Lots of Ideas on our gallery pages good luck with this project and can't wait to see the final result. Close up below taken by West London Artificial Grass showing how realistic our Quickgrass looks. Approved fitters west London

Sounds like a great project. The plants you've chosen would be a good combination although I hope you haven't got hay fever as the appropriately named sneezeweed might trigger it. I've labeled on the pics what I think they are but it's hard to tell from the photos. The hebe could be 'vernicosa' variety and the laurel is the variegated one. Pretty sure about the Agastache, but it could also be Veronica, Salvia or even Nepeta (cat mint) although I wouldn't plant cat mint in the border as it spreads like mad. I agree with using the Gardeners world forum. They're pretty quick at plant ID. As far as placement goes you'd usually have the taller shrubs at the back and the rest at the front in groups of three or five. All depends on what plants and which you'd like to see the most of.

For flowers:- Echinacea has lovely bright colours and is a perennial and they can tolerate an amount of drought which may be useful if you don't have irrigation in your beds. Knautia will give you pops of pinks, mauves and cerise colours on tall thin stems, which sway in the breeze. Agapanthus are stunning but they do take a little while to establish and flower well. Cosmos give bright cheerful flowers if you want quick colour, but as they're annuals they won't come back and Osteospermum will give you great colours, but they also tend to just be annuals or very tender. For year round colour with foliage plants, look at the many colours of heuchera or even some of the carex grasses.

Hi All, thanks so much for your comments, so helpful and lots for me to start looking in to. I hadn't thought of putting the grasses in pots, perhaps I’ll try that with one or two of the ones I remove. I believe it’s possible to split them, so perhaps I do that to reduce their size a little this year. It might help to contain them a little. The dogwood looks really interesting, I love the coloured stems. I have an Acer on one side which has the lovely bright red branches during winter so perhaps I could use that to complement it or mirror it on the other side. Sonia - thank you for suggesting some other perennials that could work well. I’ve been eyeing up anemones for a while as I love them whenever I’ve seen them in other gardens, so thank you for convincing me to give them a go. I’ll try and spend a bit more time looking in to some of the others. Thanks again, all of your advice is very much appreciated. Alice