Designing a new front garden

When I first moved to my current house, the neither the front garden nor the back garden were anything nice to look at or inspiring at all. I've worked on the back and there's been many changes and although it's not looking it's best, I'm hoping that I've got it right this summer. The front is just awful to be honest with you. There's a concrete drive (why oh why did the previous owner do that, I can't afford to put a new one in), an old low, wooden fence that hasn't really survived the last few days of storms but there are some lovely plants: escallonia (that I put in), roses, a weigela, crocosmia and some more roses growing against the house.

Now, I'm not one for removing plants that have nothing wrong with them so I'm keeping all the plants where they are and I'll be working around them. I'm no garden designer and despite going to a local horticultural meeting recently about designing a small garden I'm non the wiser really. I've taken some inspiration from the internet, creating a mood board with various ideas and here's what Im looking to do:

Remove the old wooden fencing
Clear up the old patch of grass
Add two ornaments and fill with flowers
Add hedging where I can

The main inspiration I got was from striking pictures from the Dubai Miracle Garden's floral clock. It was the peacock with flowers as its tail that made me want something similar but on a much smaller scale of course!

So, I sourced a peacock planter from Dunelm, priced at £18, which I thought was quite reasonable as some ornamental peacocks were priced much higher. In this case I'm not looking for something high quality, just a good start.

I'm looking to keep flowers to a similar colour to the peacock so I've chosen to plant the following in the planter:

Petunia Fanfare Dark Blue
Lobelia Waterfall Blue
Fuchsia Southern Belle Voodoo
Verbena Enchantment Purple

Hopefully you can see the colour of the flowers on the varieties I've picked here. 

My daughter asked if she could help so I got her to fill a clean pot with potting compost and then add the plants in, placing the lobelia on one side, which will be near the neck of the peacock, the fuchsia on the sides to trail over the wings, with the petunia and verbena at the back to trail over the tail. 

I was pleased to see that the plugs didn't have too much plastic by means of a small pot. Although there was still a lot of plastic in use buying this. 

Carefully packing the young plants in the pot.

I've kept the planter in the poly tunnel as it's still too cold for the plants to be outside. Some of them are not hardy so I don't want to lose any.  Just to be doubly sure that I won't see them succumb to frost I've placed protection over the planter until the danger of frost is over. 

Next I'll be working on the front to clear any rubbish and give the roses a clip. After that I'll plan to dig and level the patch of land. I want to add some more dramatic planting as the flower varieties I'm using for the tail will be low plants. I'm hoping that the peacock will stand in a place that looks like a small jungle! 

Until next time x