calling a one foot deep strip a garden bed is a bit enthusiastic ...

i suppose you cant move the fence... closer to the drive to delete the space .. or making it 2 or 3 feet deep??

i THINK... your base problem is that your height should not be much more than the depth .. so a one foot bed.. should have ground cover.. or short plants...

here.. you are trying to grow tall plants and they are not cooperating ... they are leaning away form the fence ... due to the darkness created by the fence ... ... this is very common ...

so go with smaller..shorter plants... and move your tall plans somewhere else..

id probably just get some ground cover sedum.. and mulch heavily... and be done with it...

ken

ps: on review.. is that the neighbors house???.. is it your fence???

Before reading the comments my initial thought was "Pick one geranium and fill that strip with it." So I'm on team Lacey ;)

Thank you - neighbor’s fence urban environment yes a little enthusiastic to call it a garden😂 hellstrip is a better discription thanks

erigeron karvinskianus is a really good coverer. A plant at either end will fill in all the blanks in year 2...and forever after with very little effort (my kind of plant). Or something of that sort. Anything tall will lurch determinedly outwards to the light. In the UK, campanula portenschlagiana is also a beloved and much used filler. I recall using one of the acaenas, buchananii?I think, in a hellstrip (teeny 'borders' are common over here). My daughter did one of hers with flax (narbonense or perenne or lewisii...one of that lot). I never feel very confident about offering recommendations unless I have grown them myself, so still not always a guarantee of success, but I do think it is better to be restrained with varieties, in a small space. I am not, which is why mine are a mess, so maybe just a couple of plants, used with confidence.

Or yes, a geranium. I am loving nodosum, atm, especially now I have got hold of a couple of white flowering ones _'Silverwood' and 'Wreighburn House White'.

I have a similar strip between my sidewalk and picket fence. Its a great place for bulbs here that grow and flower in winter/spring just with the rains and die back in summer.

In my neck of the woods that would be filled by Red Valerian ... whether you wanted it or not.

Yes, I nearly suggested centranthus.

Ok,please forgive,am trying to do pics but can only find the photo icon by tagging on the end of an existing thread. Will get back on pc for advice as using my phone is

What is your relationship with the neighbor? Would they let you grow a clematis on the fence? Or, for less commitment lol, an annual vine? Thunbergia, morning glories, etc?

:)

Dee

Also, thinking that a line of cosmos might look really pretty along the fence. Another annual - sorry, I know you wanted perennials but looking at your fence I thought these might look lovely. Not sure how well they would grow in the shaded part though....

And btw, I like the idea of a perennial geranium as well. I have one I got at a plant swap YEARS ago - can't remember what kind - and every year I am so pleasantly surprised at how lovely it is. Very neglected, half shade, half sun, almost no supplemental water, almost no attention whatsoever in over 15 years, and it looks gorgeous. Healthy, prolific, and very long-blooming. Even nice-looking foliage when it's not in bloom. Perhaps something like this is what you need along a driveway.

:)

Dee