Garden border plant suggestions?

[Ginger M]

Inside my fenced veggie/flower garden I have a border bed right next to the fence. Horsetail, thistle, blackberry and native rose invade it and I spend quite a bit of time pulling it out. A few years ago I planted a couple of hardy geraniums in this bed and it’s done a pretty good job in smothering the horsetail and thistle. It grows 1’ tall and spreads about 3’. It blooms most of the summer and when it isn’t in bloom the foliage looks nice. I’ve interplanted rose campion for height and color variation and a mock orange. This year I’m trying a husker red penstemon to see if it’s hardy enough to survive and service this tough location – I like the foliage color and the flowers are airy and move in the breeze. Besides the horsetail, the soil is loamy clay and stays saturated all winter/spring. I rarely irrigate in the summer months  but do irrigate the new plantings until they establish. Voles tunnel through this area so planting bulbs, corms, tubers is out of the question unless there are some that voles won’t eat.

 

I’m looking for plant suggestions. I want to keep the profile low – no more than three feet tall unless it’s airy and can be seen through. I do not want to plant anything that I will need to dig and divide, or will be invasive. The rose campion flowers get deadheaded before setting seeds so I can control it. The bed itself is 2’ deep and I allow growth to spill out over the walkway by about a foot. It would be wonderful to get some fall color into this bed. I love a riot of color and motion.

 

Here it is in a nutshell: Full sun, must take moist conditions through winter/spring, drought tolerant in summer, non-invasive,  3’ x 1’ to 3’ spread, low maintenance, attractive all summer, no bulbs, etc.

 

Thank you for any consideration you might give.

 

Ginger