Come Into The Garden Maud in Scottish Meanderings

I need some gardening advice from all you prolific gardeners out there. But first - can you imagine living in this sitting room??


It's from a series I was watching on Netflix and I was just struck by the sheer whiteness of it all and how scared I would be to actually move in that room never mind sit down in it!!

So - the garden. I basically just want to know what I have in it. Which shouldn't be that hard because I think everything in it is pretty common. I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to gardening (as you'll have gathered) - I pretty much tidy it up every so often and things seem to keep on growing - in fact I hadn't realised how much until I looked at photos of it when I first moved in and realised just how much everything had spread. The nice thing about that is the fact that when I sit in the chair in the corner I'm quite secluded from view and the house is in a cul de sac so there are no passing pedestrians apart from the people who live there. In fact next door were installing a new doorbell the other day and I was sitting in the chair just inches away and they'd no idea I was there!

This is a sort of overview of all of it looking toward the house (with Bailey doing his best watchcat impression):


and this is what I see when I sit in my chair:


Here's a closer view of it and the rose bush with all 3 cats no doubt having a discussion about what might be in my bag and if it's worth investigating while I'm otherwise occupied:


and - just for fun - here is my very lazy gnome with the row of toadstools placed in an effort to brighten up that border because I can't get anything to grow in it for some reason. Hey maybe he's got CFS as well!


If anyone can tell me what each of the bushes are or what kind of rose bush I have I'd be most grateful. The bush beside the door produces a reddish pink kind of flower on it and then some hard berry-like fruit things which look like dried up prunes. The flower in front of the rose bush produces yellow flowers which I think are crocuses. The rose bush obviously needs pruned but I don't know how to do it - my brother told me it doesn't matter how far you cut a bush back it'll still grow so last week I hacked bits of it which were getting in the way and just hope he's right!

Here is the bush at the door in flower and the (I think) crocus also in full flower.


This is a clearer view of the maroon coloured bush which has very prickly branches if that's any help.


I'm finding I can just keep on top of it and no more from a maintenance point of view - I have to lug the lawnmower through the house from the shed at the back so that doesn't help but it's too heavy to carry out the back gate because then I would have to take it down a lane, along another one and round the corner to the front - much easier (although messier) to take through the house. Once the grass is cut, I trim the edges with shears and then sometimes I'm done for the day - what I used to do was then dig over the ground with a trowel and get the weeds out but I generally can't manage that any more and have to make do with pulling out what I can and sort of roughly going over it with my hands in gardening gloves and hope that'll do. It's not ideal.

But it's manageable. And at the moment my functioning hours appear to be in the late afternoon so on sunny days it's really nice to sit out with a sandwich and my iPad and at least get some fresh air.


And hidden from view under the nearby bushes but always there are two ladies of - shall we say generous proportions - having a natter -


But the back garden :(

Ah now that's a different story!

A total pain in the proverbial and almost too much for me at the moment. I don't even use it because by the time I'm up and about, the sun's moved round to the front and I'm iffy about letting the girls play out there because the paving stones are so broken and uneven. After several weeks this is what faces me when I look out the kitchen window -


And it takes me around 3 hours of backbreaking toil to return it to this -


even with weedkiller down (although I was so exhausted last time I literally didn't have any energy to use the spray bottle all over the paving stones - made sure I did this time though!).

It was looking so promising a couple of years after I moved in too. This was in 2010.


But alas nothing survived except the blue flowering plant (any ideas what it is?) which I'd like to transplant to the front but am not sure how. Is it just a case of literally taking a piece of it and digging a hole deep enough for it?

I keep the ground bit there because I know that's Willow's loo. His other favourite place is under the bush at the end of the front path and it took me a while to figure out why he kept asking to be let out the front when he had a perfectly good cat flap in the back door but then I realised it's because the only way they can get back in is round the neighbour's side path and back garden and over her half fence and I think Willow - in his dotage - is finding that fence a bit much sometimes. I now know when he goes out the front he's ready to come back in about 5-10 minutes later so - well-trained cat owner that I am - I allow him that luxury nowadays!

So something will need to happen with that back garden but I'm not sure what because I have to count every penny at the moment.

And I've just been out to the postbox at 11.30 at night (this is how I live my life at the moment - starting the day around 4 p.m. and venturing outside at crazy-ass times in the shadows) and noticed the ladies are being taken over by a creeping ivy which has appeared from nowhere (as ivy tends to do) and is splaying its tendrils all over the place.


(I did text Nikki just in case I got mugged then realised she was probably tucked up in bed sleeping - however 5 minutes later I got a "Why are you going to the freaking postbox at 11.30 at night?? Not even I would do that!" reply to which she was quite glad to get a response!)

No 58 year old ladies being mugged tonight. Well not in Danestone anyway.