The brief:

A south facing border 11m x 1.7m approx in rear garden of our cottage. The border runs more or less the whole length of the garden. The backdrop is a wooden fence painted dark green.

Sarah had a clear view of what she wanted: not fussy, not cottage but something romantic with a definite wow factor. She liked a range of colours and forms with different textures being important. Dislikes included Hebes (don't we all?). 

The soil was light and sandy but Sarah was happy to spend time and (some) money improving it and mulching to retain moisture. Whilst she loved oranges like Heleniums she wanted a simple and harmonious colour scheme and picked out pinks and purples as well as acid yellows.

Sarah made one change to the design that we sent her (below), swapping Cephalaria gigantea for the tall deeper yellow of Rudbeckia laciniata Herbstsonne, 

Sarah also loved Alliums, which we don't propagate so we suggested buying bulbs of "Purple Sensation" to plant singly throughout the left (west) end of the bed and A.sphereochephala in small groups at the east end of the bed. These varieties are easily obtained from most garden centres in autumn. For early interest bulbs of Tulip "Queen of the Night" and "Spring Green" could be planted in groups at intervals throughout the bed.