If you're that way inclined what about herbs, as it's presumably near to the kitchen door?

What's the raised bed sitting on - is there soil beneath it, or a solid surface? If the surface is solid, is there drainage in the bottom of the bed, or is that solid too?

Perennial Geraniums, perennial Osteospermum, and a small Euonymus elatus for autumn colour.

Thank you all, have another one I am using for veg and herbs in another place, this one is to be admired for its colour from the window. Its sitting on the soil, just built it on the existing garden.

Presumably you'd like to admire it in winter as well as summer then! Its good its open at the bottom, means there's no root restriction for permanent planting. I think the best thing is to use some smaller evergreens mixed with the more flowery, impermanent summer bedding plants, assuming you want to use those for summer as well. The trouble is, you haven't said whether the bed will be in full sun, no sun, or half and half, so I've marked the ones that need fullor at least 8 hours of sun with an asterisk. If the area only gets a couple of hours sun, then that's another issue and needs more thought.

Have a look at the following - there's a mix of leaf colour and shape with these, some flower, some don't, well, not so's you'd notice anyway - Heuchera 'Midnight Rose'; Euonymus 'Blondie' or Emerald'n'Gold; Euonymus Pierrolino; Hebe youngii; Ophiopogon nigrescens*; Helianthemums*; Arabis procurrens*;Campanula muralis; any of the other Heucheras with variously coloured leaves (lime, yellow, orange, almost black). All these will still be in leaf in winter.

Wow that's all very helpful thank you all, off to the garden centre tomorrow to pester them. Re the sun it gets, its south facing so will catch the sun up to late afternoon when the house shadow begins to creep accross it so that's not bad I guess, virtually three quarter of the sun available each day.