upright shrubs

Do you like Berberis? There's an upright one...I think it's called 'Helmand's Pillar'... I think anyway! It looks attractive in leaf and in flower.

There are also slow-growing 'fastigiate' evergreen trees like Taxus baccata. Or you could put up a trellis and plant things to train along it, like chaenomeles, or small evergreen clematis such as 'Early Sensation'.

Euonymus, Mahonia fremontii, Ribes speciosum.

The bed looks wide enough for Photinia Red Robin - which can be clipped to a nice 'hedge' width.

i love berberis but i have small grandchildren and i think they are prickly?, not heard of fastigiate i will look into that thanks spritzhenry, euonymus is a good idea thanks wagger and also photinia thanks ducky.

I have just bought 2 acanthus spinosus which will grow to 1.5m with an 80cm spread, it does say summer spikes of flowers but I don't think they are spikey as in the sharp sense of the word.
If you got to www.jparkers.co.uk they have an online ordering and delivery it helps if you don't have time to go to the garden centres. Hope that helps a bit.

The concrete slab fence looks very uninspiring and I think I would want to hide all of it. Your first response suggesting a trellis attached to it ,or free standing in front of it, with evergreen climbers sounds a good solution.
Or a narrow hedge all the way or part of the way along it. I have planted a Photinia Red Robin hedge and it looks wonderful at this time of year with its new red growth. Easy to trim and keep to the size you want.

thanks bobq and inverglen will definitely look at both those options photinia seems to be a good option and i am gonna look at jparkers now as i havent heard of that shrub

A trellis is a very good idea, yes the concrete is a little uninspiring and could be 'disguised' a little by possibly painting it in a garden shade before you put up trellis, cuprinol do some nice colours perhaps a green or a colour to match your wooden fences my be better, I always like passionflower or honeysuckle but you could go for a clematis or even a heavyweight like a wisteria but you would have to make sure your trellis was fastened up very secure as they all grow and spread quite rapidly

thanks bob i will have a think about that, its funny but when the garden was a terrible mess i never noticed it but now it is like the proverbial thumb sticking out!

just a quick update, i went to my local garden centre this morning and bought photinia and planted it this morning along with a fatsia and dogwood, hopefully the colours will compliment each other and i am underplanting with some smaller perennials, thanks for all your help

Make sure you get the camera out with 'before' and 'after' shots, then!