Flowers/shrubs for a small garden ??

[Herb2]

Your'e in Ireland? Then, like us, you're spoiled for choice! (This is pretty late too - but here goes. Our climate here on the far S.W. coast of Canada is very much like yours - maybe a bit warmer and drier, but I don't think the difference is significant.) All of these (except Photinia - we don't have any Photinia, but it's common round here) are doing well in our garden -

1. Escallonia. Dense, mounding, dark, glossy, small-leaved evergreens ranging from a low sort (Newport dwarf) through Pink Escallonia, to a quite tall white flowered one. They flower later in the year & with us often through winter as well.
Pink Escallonia makes a good hedge too. Naturally you have to keep it clipped, but it doesn't grow as fast as Privet.

2. Mahonia Aquifolium (Oregon Grape). Evergreen, brilliant, perfumed yellow flowers. Ours is blooming fully right now. The berries are said to make good jam, but when we tried it, it needed to be sieved to get rid of the seeds. If you want jam, stay with Black Currants.

3. Viburnum bodnantense (Winter flowering Viburnum). Pink flowers. Ours has grown quite tall but the base has remained narrow. It's been flowering all winter.

4. You've already mentioned a tall growing Cotoneaster. Good choice. Ours is covered with red berries every autumn. They hang for several weeks, and then the birds eat the lot.

5. Camellia. All sorts, all evergreen. Sasanqua Camellias in particular are winter flowering, and come in a very wide choice of flowers & habit.

6. Abelia. Evergreen or near to it. Graceful & arching, pink flowers later in the year.

7. For deep shade, Aucuba. Evergreen. Some varieties have yellow stripes & others yellow blotches of the leaves , that makes them show up.

8. For evergreens that have lots of yellow in the leaves, & to grow where there's no shade, some varieties of Euonymus.

9. Eleagnus - same remarks as for 8.

10. Hebe. Some low-growing & mounding: others less so. Wide variety of lead shapes. Leaf colours vary from one variety to another.

11. Photinia. New leaf growth an interesting bright reddish colour. Also good as a hedge. Much nicer than English Laurel. If you want Laurel, go for Portuguese Laurel - smaller, darker green glossier leaves than English Laurel and less aggressive roots. Left to itself it'll grow very big, even into a very sustantial tree..

12. Box. Slow growing but as a hedge, Common Box is way better than privet and far less work.