Filling the garden gaps with plant cuttings | In Fiona's Garden

It's fatally easy to end up with lots of gap fillers like cotton lavender (Santolina), Artemisia "Powys Castle' or Salvia nemorosa when what you really wanted were some large shrubs to block the winter south-westerlies.

Before you set out with secateurs, a plastic bag and enthusiasm, take a slow walk round and look for gaps that need filling or corners where you can have fun extending the existing plantings.

I love grevilleas and am always looking for new ones to try. A kind friend on the coast recently gave me some cuttings of Grevillea 'Moonlight' and I'm keen to see if it copes with a Central Tablelands frost.

'Moonlight' (three to five metres) is one of the late Merv Hodge's hybrids developed in his beautiful garden in Logan, Queensland so I can rely on it being a good plant - it flowers all year in warm climates - but it only tolerates light frost. But like all gardeners I love pushing boundaries.

South African Buddleia salviifolia (3m) is reliably frost hardy, a spreading shrub with narrow grey leaves and soft mauve, fragrant flowers in late winter. It's fabulous for fast effect but like all buddleias becomes irritatingly straggly after about five years and needs regular renewal, even if heavily pruned.

Evergreen Pittosporum tenuifolium (6m to 9m) from New Zealand is a better long-term proposition and is one of the hardiest pittosporums. It has wiry black stems and small, shiny, olive-green leaves, and honey scented flowers in spring.

Numerous smaller cultivars available, all good.

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For foliage contrast, try the wide spreading, deciduous Sorbaria aitchisonii (3m) from the Himalayan mountains of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Kashmir, with large (20-25 centimetre) pinnate leaves and panicles of fluffy, creamy flowers in summer. It needs full sun to look its best and is drought tolerant and frost hardy.

Hibiscus syriacus (2-2.5m) is a deciduous, hardy hibiscus from China and India but not Syria, with dark green, toothed edged, triangular leaves and mallow like flowers in summer, mauve with a purple centre. Numerous cultivars are available in a range of pinks, reds and white, single and double. Hardy and easy.

North American ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius) also has toothed leaves, with white flower clusters that change to reddish green seed pods in late summer.

I love the deep purple form 'Diabolo' with tiny red flowers, though it lacks the interesting pods.

Purple elderberry (Sambucus nigra 'Black Lace, 3m) from Britain and Europe has the most decorative purple leaves of any shrub, large and dissected, splendid in early summer when the sprays of lacey pink flowers fading to white appear. Like the buddleias, it needs a regular trim to keep in shape.

Lastly, simply for its blossom - its leaves are irredeemably dull - Philadelphus 'Belle Etoile' (1.5m to 2m) has 50cm white flowers flushed purple, and orange blossom scent that spreads throughout the garden.