Anyone fancy helping me with garden layout?

[LousyLandscaper]

Trying to figure out what to do with my garden but I don't have a lot of vision! At the moment it is just laid to (very bumpy) grass but I would like to make it into something inspirational and beautiful. Looking for advice on what to do with the area covered in light diagonal lines. I will be hanging a couple of swings from the tree. I would like a firepit area, seating area, bbq area, washing line but I have no idea what to do with it apart from that.

Do you know what style you want? Traditional? Modern? Zen? Cottage garden? What sort of house do you Have?

It is an old farmhouse and I would like a cottage garden type feel. I just don't know where to put stuff, I love climbing plants like wisteria, jasmine, clematis. Also love hydrangeas, a big fan of terracotta pots. I don't need any vegetable beds as we will plant them elsewhere.

There is a gardening board where you may get a better response. I am a very keen gardener, and have always preferred the cottage garden style.
Wisteria is a lot of work to maintain, and also get a very heavy, do you have walks that can support it?
I like planting jasmine, honeysuckle, clematis as climbers.

I have a washing line but hate it being in my way when I am enjoying the garden so have retractable ones, weren't expensive,maybe £10 and I've had 4 years from them. It looks so much better when it's away.
Plan some proper waterproof storage (Shed or those kettener storage chests) for your bbq, furniture etc over winter and it will last much better.
Hydrangeas are a nice easy plant to grow.
Terracotta pots look nice but need a lot of watering, so consider plants which don't need too much water, I find lavender does very well in terracotta

Thanks for all of the tips. I have asked for this to be moved to the gardening board!
Good advice about the wisteria, I had not considered that - will have a think about where I could mayve have it - how fast does it grow?
I hadn't realised about terracotta pots either, am I better to go for glazed instead? Is it because of the porosity of terracotta? I also need to plsnt out some borders in the front - what are your favourite cottage garden plants that are fairly easy to grow? I think we have acidic soil as there are some rhododendrons that are doing rather well!

We're moving this thread over to our Gardening topic at the OP's request.

It's a bit hard to read your plan. What is the building on the left? If you are comfortable putting photos up, that will help people a lot to understand the site when making suggestions.

The first thing to do is work out where you have full sun (more than 6 hours), partial shade (3-6 hours sun), dappled shade (under trees) and shade and where the sun is at different times of day so you know what you can grow and where you can potentially put your BBQ etc. If you want to eat dinner outside and are sun lovers, there is no point putting a table where it is shady at that time etc You also need an idea of what the soil is like pH, drainage, clay/gravel etc to know what you can plant.

Once you have an idea of the suitable areas for the seating area, then you can start thinking about layout and planting schemes. Or ask on here! People can make suggestions but without knowing about sun/shade etc they could be totally inappropriate.

Oh sorry that is my rubbish drawing skills!!
I didn't realise that there was specific descriptions of what full sun etc was classed as so that is very helpful so I will watch out for that.
The building on the left is the garage and stable block but it is being knocked down and and rebuilt, the plan I have drawn will be the new footprint (at the moment the building is longer but we have taken some of the front off to allow more parking space)
I would say most of the garden has full sun in the summer , the shade from the tree kind of goes to the back of the garden towards the field. We have some other trees that are being removed but they are at the north bit of the garden so I don't think they will make much difference sun wise). There is no shade coming from the east side (right hand of the plan) as that is just our paddock there so no buildings or anything.
Soil is acidic and clay but I understand I can improve the acidity with some lime if needed? Drainage is poor in the centre of the garden at the moment but we are sorting out drainage so it should be improved. We are in Scotland though so we do get a lot of rain and it is never particularly warm so plants that are Hardy enough would be good.
I love the idea of a pergola but at the same time I love full sun on the seldom occasion we get it here!
I will try and get photos later (pouring rain at the moment and looks very depressing)

I'm a big gardening fan but also a bit of a newbie. Things I'm discovering are
Look very carefully at the flowering season as semi/shade plants particularly flower in spring or for a month then are over. I love foxgloves but I think mine are finished now. Aquilegias only flower till about now too. I only found this out yesterday and am a bit gutted. Poppies too.

A sheltered sunny place to start seeds off and a warmer place than the garden to put plants like begonias over winter are both invaluable. A little lean to greenhouse maybe.

I love climbers but have found through bitter experience they need to go in the ground unless they are annuals like thunbergia (fabulous plants and have new colours) or morning glory (grandpa otts is fab). Both are easy to grow but best started early.

Honeysuckles are great but beware of aphids. Climbing roses can be amazing if you choose carefully, climbing hydrangea for shade but very slow growing.

If your soil is acidic there are some lovely new hydrangeas around now.

I've got a mix of pot types and not noticed much difference. Bigger is better. Small pots are hopeless.

Your drawing skills aren't rubbish, it's just a bit small to read at this resolution!

Thank you very much for the advice. Definitely need to think about how to plant in a way that extends the season I will have flowers in. We have a couple of lilac trees which I was in love with when they were in flower last month. I might try and take a few cuttings so I can have some more in the back garden. I think I would mostly like to deal with perennials to get me started tehn maybe I can start introducing annuals once I have the background basics in place. Thunbergia look lovely and had never heard of them - do you just plant every year as an annual or do you put somewhere warm to overwinter?
I think I will most likely get a polytunnel but will have to be strict with myself not to let it be taken over exclusively for fruit and veg - I absolutely adore trying to grow fruit and veg but don't tend to do very well with it yet. I am starting to become more interested in flowers now though.