Marian - the paper size is 11"x17" for the course but I gather in 'real life' it would be at least 24"x36" or bigger... Mary - I have noticed the ads for the English Gardening School in the RHS magazine. And there are the RHS courses too... I guess one advantage of the U of G courses is you can just take the courses that interest you and they can count towards a certificate/diploma or not, as you like. So there no feeling that you didn't complete a program if you want to stop after just one course. The Internet format was ideal for me; it's just that the course content wasn't quite what I was looking for. I'll have to look around at options and then see whether I'm still in the mood to do something more once the gardening season is over for this year. Saucy - The reference to the clematises is in the verbal description of the plan. You need the plant list key to find them on the drawing (and the drawing posted here is too small to read the numbers anyway! :-) GB - I was going to consult with you about what ones to use but ran out of time and just named ones I was familiar with! The transparent house was interesting. I had to 'build' it from scratch with only the floor plan outline, the height of the walls as provided by the teacher, and the fact that there was a 2' roof overhang! It's not quite right I think on the back part of the house but good enough for the purpose of the assignment. The whole isometric drawing thing is actually quite simple to do - if a bit fiddly and tedious! You follow a straightforward process using fairly crude shapes for the plants (drawn to scale based on mature height and spread) and, when you put it all together, it produces that rather astonishing drawing - with zippo artistic talent required on my part! Since it was all done at a scale of 1/8" = 1' small details were killers to work with. It took me two days to draw that table and tuteur! Rotating things 30 degrees when they're that small and have so many lines (all those chair legs etc.!) is hard on the eyes... And since the technique produces a 3-D effect, I kept losing track of what was bottom and what was top as the little image seemed to have a life of its own and 'morphed' a lot :-) And tilting everything at 30 degrees started to 'get' to me - when I was reading something after working on the drawings for a while, the text of what I was reading seemed to be on a slant! But it was mostly fun - and good mental exercise :-) But now it's time to mess around in the real garden! I do hope to get out and measure things next week and do a proper scale drawing of the front garden and the changes I want to make there. (I suspect I may end up just 'winging it' as usual if spring gets underway quickly sometime soon and I run out of planning time....:-)

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time by Robert Herrick GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may, Old time is still a-flying : And this same flower that smiles to-day To-morrow will be dying. Then be not coy, but use your time, And while ye may go marry : For having lost but once your prime You may for ever tarry. A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns My love is like a red, red rose ThatâÂÂs newly sprung in June : My love is like the melody ThatâÂÂs sweetly played in tune. As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, So deep in love am I : And I will love thee still, my dear, Till aâ the seas gang dry. Go, lovely Rose by Edmund Waller Go, lovely Rose-- Tell her that wastes her time and me, That now she knows, When I resemble her to thee, How sweet and fair she seems to be. Tell her thatâÂÂs young, And shuns to have her graces spied, That hadst thou sprung In deserts where no men abide, Thou must have uncommended died. Small is the worth Of beauty from the light retired: Bid her come forth, Suffer herself to be desired, And not blush so to be admired. Then die--that she The common fate of all things rare May read in thee; How small a part of time they share That are so wondrous sweet and fair! The Sick Rose by William Blake O Rose thou art sick. The invisible worm, That flies in the night In the howling storm: Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy: And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy. Yes, there is a strong tradition of literary roses that have been studied over and over and over. If we had room, I could give you rose-inspired poems dating back to the Middle Ages, but they are rather long, so perhaps you'll settle for the brief survey above--Herrick 17th century; Burns 19th cent; Waller 17th century; Blake 19th century. Kate : )

Yum! My neighbor just brought some over a couple of days ago. It's one of my favorite vegetables. My neighbor eats it raw right out of the garden, also steams it, and his wife makes pickled asparagus (yuk), and she sells it for $10/quart jar. Personally I like mind stir-fried. How do you fix yours? Julie

Carol, great shot! You captured it well. Valerie, thanks for the info. One never thinks about all the hard work that goes into the making of some things.