Embarrassing garden plans

I was really going to do it. I was going to bite the bullet and post my garden plans that I had a go at drawing up the other day. I just can't do it. I ummed and ahhed but I honestly cannot embarrass myself that much, nor Mr TG cos his were worse (in my humble opinion).
You see I AM an artist. By that I mean I have an O Level grade A in Art and had I not followed the Equestrian route after school I may very well have attempted to eke out a living through Art.
With that in mind I just cannot bring myself ..............................oh what the heck I'll do it, but first I have to post a picture of the last thing I drew a couple of years ago because I'd rather a half decent drawing was the first thing you see

Please bear in mind that this VERY ROUGH garden plan was scribbled down with a biro on the garden and is neither to scale nor exactly finished. What I will do is re-draw it properly (still not to scale mind cos I'm too lazy to measure it all) and then re-post it but for now.....

I have never made garden plans - EVER! If it works in my head then I do it, if it looks naff when I've finished then I'll sulk for a while before re-doing it.  My expertise (or lack of) in the garden design drawing department is clearly evident in several areas.

1. The obvious naffness of the drawing.
2. The fact that I had to extend our boundary fence at the bottom into the farmers field (don't think the sheep would take kindly to that)
3. Not one plant that already exists is named (or even in its correct place in the plan)
4. Not one plant name has been suggested (because I make it up as I go along and I'll decide on those rather crucial elements 2 seconds before I plant them)
5. No element is described i.e. Who's to know that the squiggle going all the way across the grass is a path of some description.
6. Who's to know that it even IS grass?
7. Again, the obvious naffness of the drawing.

Now I feel brave enough to include Mr TG's garden plan. You need to picture the scene first though:- Do you remember at school when you didn't want anyone to copy your work so you hunched over it with that protective arm circle?  Well that was Mr TG with these garden plans, so you now have to imagine the masterpiece  I was expecting with all his protectiveness

Now I appreciate how rubbish my own design is but floating grass?  When he first revealed this masterpiece it took me an age to focus on it, it really did.
At least Mr TG did offer some plant suggestions but here's why this plan is equally as naff as my own

1. All that path that goes round the floating lawn and up to the bird aviary and off into a million other places is a stone set path - this project is mine and it would take me years to cart that much stone from acres away and set it all.
2. The plants! Well let's just say those things that look like buried bodies are his planting suggestions.
3. Look hard and you'll see his suggestion of "small box hedge" randomly splattered down the side of the floating lawn. Box blight and hedge cutting are not in his vocabulary.
4. At the far top right he suggests a "Rose garden". Lovely you might say, only his Rose garden is in the most exposed North facing area of the garden. Wind would rip them apart - Oh the slaughter of it all!
5. A water feature in the middle of the lawn? Seriously? And a round one to boot.
6. The area that gets the most sun and heat (which we need to use here in the Highlands) is the area he's stuck a patio on with potted plants$$!!
7. His plan makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and would do my head in every time I go out there. 
8. It's naff!

So there you go I've embarrassed myself and Mr TG (though Mr TG will never find out) and I completely understand if you're unable to offer us some helpful hints due to the belly aching laugh you are probably in the middle of.

So I am going to leave you with a couple more arty pictures. Not mine this time, these are by one of my daughters who inherited my Arty flair. Actually they both inherited it (twins) but one of them doesn't bother so much

Once you've managed to stop laughing perhaps you could offer a helpful hint re the garden design process? Other than "Give up" or "Get someone in that can actually draw" of course because we've already heard that LOL.

Honesty. Do you really wanna hear it?

I like to think that I want honesty from every person I have in my life but today I kind of wavered and figured maybe I'd like to hear a little white lie.
You see I've been pottering away in my garden for a while now, I've laid many sleepers for edging, carted heaps of soil from acres away, built stone walls, built a shed - you get the picture right? Well I've had this niggle in the back of my head for ages now because my idea of the perfect garden is an enclosed space, full to the brim with flowers, curved beds and garden rooms rather than one huge expanse. What I have in reality are straight lines, odd planting and one huge expanse where you can stand in one spot and see the entire garden.
So today just as I was about to pick axe away at some solid ground to install another sleeper (I make things up as I go along don't forget) I stopped and asked Mr TG
"Do you think the garden is boring?"  What a stupid thing to ask and I knew where it was going to lead.
"Do you want the truth?" enquires Mr TG.
"Errrrm.... yes" says I.
"Then Yes it is boring. Very"
Well I did ask didn't I!  We then entered into a veeeeeery long discussion about everything that is wrong with the garden and basically Mr TG knew it wasn't what I would consider an ideal garden. He then had the idea to go indoors and draw our plans out (because they differed immensely) and I have to say I was very reluctant to do that because LINDA DOESN'T DO PLANS, but I went along with it anyways.
The end result was that I was seriously concerned about Mr TG's sanity! Seriously his plan - while spotted with good ideas - resembled the aerial view of a theme park. Bless him he even made plant suggestions, none of them would have a hope in hells chance of surviving here but he did make suggestions.
Anyway the final outcome is that I was so worried that Mr TG would begin to implement his theme park plan that I have my own plan down on paper and I ain't deviating from it .......  well ok maybe a few deviations as I go along.

So Mr TG has been encouraged to return to his area of expertise - the ploughing. Sounds awful doesn't it but I don't mean it to. If it wasn't for his determination and strength (despite of or in spite of his COPD) the land would never get done and we wouldn't be looking forward to an expanse of grass as we drive down the lane

This work is very time consuming. First Mr TG has to strim or mow the grass (he ran out of gas for the blow torch - thankfully) then rake it, then mow it again, then rake it, then rotovate it, then remove big lumps/stones/roots, rotovate it again and again, rake it level and then finally flatten it.

This is the adapted roller he uses

Believe me that thing weighs an absolute fricking tonne and Mr TG drags that over every inch of the land he's cultivated.

Once it's all finished ( he has to go to the tree line) we'll grass seed it and hopefully - fingers crossed - we'll have an area that we can keep looking neat with a lawn mower.

DIY Plant supports

It's been a strange day today weather wise. Yesterday was probably the warmest day so far this year and then today we were working away amid snow flurries - yet it didn't actually feel that cold.
Much has been done outside though and despite me promising myself not to I'm still milling about from garden to greenhouse to polytunnel, but at least jobs are getting done.
Have to say though when we get gorgeous days it is kinda difficult to not stop and stare every few minutes at the scenery around us. This field will be full of Spring lambs soon but we are very close to the sea and unfortunately I have always found the Ocean to be mesmerising

I had an idea the other day, one of those ideas that blindsides you at 4am. I'd been thinking about making some plant supports for some of my garden flowers (thinking waaaaaay ahead here) and I've always found bamboo canes to be the best and most resilient supports but let's face it - dey ugly man! Plus I always have this vision of me falling on the end and skewering an eyeball or one of the dogs getting impaled on them so I needed some end caps that wouldn't cost anything (totally hate buying what can be made). I have hundreds of wine corks (I'm not a drinker they were donated, I honestly haven't gotten through hundreds of bottles of wine - honest) but lets face it they're about as appealing as the bamboo canes - stick a boring wine cork on top of a boring cane and what do you have ...... boring plant supports.
So that 4am idea that woke me up (It honestly did happen like that too ) was to spray the canes with whatever spray I already have and then paint the wine corks with nail varnish.
For ages I'd been contemplating what to paint the corks with because it had to be durable and weather resistant so Nail varnish made complete sense ......... at 4am.
Armed with canes, silver sparkle spray and various colours of nail varnish I headed to the greenhouse / workshop and put my funky plan into action. Here are various colours waiting for approval (or not as the case turned out to be)

The best colour by far was the bottom greeny one, it looked quite fabulous against the silver of the cane. The Pink one just looked too washed out and was discarded. At this point I've only used the greeny one, the navy blue and the deep red (top left that looks black) plus some gold ones as I found an old can of Xmas gold spray.

I've made quite a few now and at the moment they're keeping the dogs off areas of my garden borders that have been planted up. I had to resort to all kinds of deterrant measures because Huntly the little ........ erm... fecking horror sweetie is determined to dig up every plant I plant and thinks that all the new soil I barrowed over from what seems like 3 miles away is there for him to dig straight back out again. I seriously cannot wait until we have another area for the dogs to play in.

I also decided to finally get round to moving Mahonia 'Winter Sun' to another location. It's been situated under a tree for about 9 years now and has never flourished or flowered. I've been meaning to move it for ages and as the whole area is going to get an overhaul this year (hopefully)  I figured now was a pretty good time to do it

See how cruddy the ground is. I had a fab idea years ago to polythene the ground and gravel it on top cos that would stop weeds right? Nope, not so much. Seems weeds grow in gravel and can puncture thick polythene in the bid to wage war on my garden.
When it's been completely renovated all the gravel will be gone and there'll be fresh soil with bark chippings on top in its place.
Anyway that's where the sickly Mahonia lived and now it lives here

Mahonia 'Winter sun'.

That's its new home with lots more sunshine (I previously believed they needed heavy shade) plus a good prune to encourage it to bush out a little. Now we just wait and see if it responds the way I hope it will.

I'm sharing this at

Tillys Nest 
Savvy Southern Style 
504 Main 
The Thrifty Grove
Common Ground