Plants near hedges ideas please.

Borage may do ok, although some people see it as a weed.  Blue flowers tick the colour box, bees love it.  Apparently likes it not too wet and not too dry but then also is said to basically "grow itself".

Oh yeah, and you can eat it, well.....if you're really hungry.

I have Borage seed, it's a thought - but really I'd prefer perennials, thanks.
I thought Hellebores liked shade  off to have a look 

  I like that idea!

Its going to be fairly dry poor soil because of the hedge, but herbs and alpines should be OK if it is sunny.

Rosemary and lavender could be the taller shrubs, with creeping thyme and alpines as the ground cover 

The problem I have with plants near the hedge in a similar situation to yours is that they are tough enough to whithstand me standing on them when i go off balance when cutting the blasted hedge.If you use an electric hedgetrimmer the cable could be a problem knocking over delicate flowers.

Ihave moved most of my herbs to that are as you were thinking about.I cant see the point of planting veg/perennials there as the hedge would take up most of the nutrients that yu put in and as most herbs dont mind a bit of starvation it seems like the best of a bad situation.Most herbs also smell nice when you stand on them while trimming the hedge