Black Magic is my best dark red. It doesn't have a scent, but the blooms are beautifully formed and last forever. It gets very tall, 4-5 feet tall here and only 2 feet wide or a bit wider at the top. I do have Barkarole/Taboo but I haven't had much luck with it. Every once in a while it will have a really great dark red bloom with a nice scent, but it doesn't do this very often. It doesn't bloom much and the blooms don't always form very well. I've been giving it time since other people on the forum really like theirs but I wouldn't go through the trouble to get it again. It is the closest to black of any rose I grow. Ingrid Bergman is a good dark red too, not as dark as the others but the blooms have a bit of a scent and last a long time so it is nice to have. Ingrid does not get very large for me, maybe 2X2'. If you want more of a dark purple, then the Prince is the best of the dark purples. It has a good scent and lasts for a few days in a vase which is more than I can say for most Austins. The Prince is a smaller rose bush. Ebb Tide bloomed well but the individual blooms were small and didn't cut at all well for me. Mine didn't have a scent either although it is supposed to. Intrigue has the same dark purple color most of the time but it does turn red in the heat. Intrigue smells very lemony and doesn't grow very well or bloom very much, but a good bloom is very nice. I do have Blackberry Nip which is a dark purple hybrid tea, but it was a tiny baby last year with one bloom so I can't say much yet. That one bloom was very promising though.

I am in Houston which was zone 9 but changed now to zone 8. I studied the raspberry subject in the winter or slightly earlier and found a lot of likes for Baba Berries for the south. I ordered them with my fruit tree order from Bay Laurel Nursery. They have now been received, but since then, I have gone to a fruit gardening talk with one of the beginning heads of Urban Harvest in Houston. I knew he was an important speaker so went and asked about raspberries. You may know him, Bob Randall. He also belongs to the Rare Fruit News newsletter. He rather chastised me for buying the Bababerries. He said bababerries were prone to some type of disease plus the taste was so so. He grows all these in his yard plus the baba. The following varieties he recommended, Anne and Itsaul. I bought Anne raspberry from Etsy.com ( cheap) and finally found Itsaul at forestfarm.com. It seems that Itsaul blooms/makes raspberries continuously. Hope this helps, Carol

Prefer California (local) trades. Thanks.

The first thing I would do is lose the shutters on the windows to the far right and far left. They are much too small. Second thing would be to get rid of the orange/salmon color around the windows. You already stated that you don't like the roof and that color around the windows is just drawing the eye to it. Are you planning to replace the roof? If so, a weathered gray/tan color would look a lot better. Can't tell if the brick has been painted or not. I'm not a fan of painting brick so if it hasn't been painted I would look for a color to paint the siding that "tones down" the brick color. A medium taupe would look good. If you're interested in seeing some virtual make overs check out my web site, Creative Visual Concepts.