The Romaggi Plot Bourbon amongst the marjoram is wonderful.

The roses are pretty if not lush, and it's a major plus for me if the bees like a plant: I like to keep them fed and hear them buzzing about. My compliments on the porcelain! Our roses are second to none, but I own almost no man-made items that I consider beautiful.

Beautiful, Ingrid. I love your photo quality, not to mention the porcelain. You are an artist. The garden looks good to me. There is something so western about it.

Beautiful roses Ingrid is Rhodologue Jules Gravereaux very fragrant? I think i will have to add it to my wish list :) thanks for sharing.

Beautiful garden and roses, but what really caught my eye is your beautiful quarter sawn oak table. Is it a claw foot one by any chance?

May I ask which rose is in front? Is it Rosette Delizy? I love the pink and orange combo.

Really lovely, Ingrid. The bees here love geraniums and catmint; it's one of summer's delights to hear and see all of that buzzy activity. I love looking at your garden! Gean

Thanks so much for all the lovely comments. I have the marjoram in four different places to feed the bees in spring and summer and lots of blooming rosemary in the winter. They also love the pepper trees and some of the roses, and even some of the weeds when they're blooming before they're cut down because of the fire danger.

Melissa, I know you spend much of your time outside and may not have such a great need for beautiful things inside. I'm inside a lot and can't live happily without the stimulation of beauty in every room.

Sheila, your comments always lift me up. Since I have no artistic talents my creative impulses are channeled into the garden, photography and interior decoration. I wish it were still directed toward cooking, a much more useful endeavor, but those days seem to be gone.

haku, I have a difficult time smelling almost any tea rose, and to my nose Jules has no fragrance, but others may detect a scent. It is however a very nice rose in every other way and seems pretty healthy so far, even when a lot of my other roses haven't been.

Marge, I took some pictures of the base of the table since you obviously know about and appreciate such things. I do believe those are claw feet, and quite hefty ones at that.

Robin, you're correct, that is Rosette Delizy, which is suddenly having quite a nice flush. It's one of my healthiest teas and also one of the least thorny. It's a very bushy rose where you almost can't see the canes because of the leaf cover, quite different from my two Mrs. B.R. Cant roses, who have scant leaves.

I've always enjoyed your garden Ingrid. Thanks for sharing. I hope this year will be a better year for your rose garden. I remember you had a hard time last year.

I hope so too, jj, but today it was 103 degrees and the roses are not happy campers. However, it could have been worse, and not everything was totally shriveled, so I'll continue to tend them and consider this a test as to which roses are the best for my (increasingly hotter) climate.

Ingrid, thank your for another delightful tour of your garden which I enjoy. I love the light you use for your photos. I hadn't thought of majoram for the bees, and I may try it. I have lots of creeping thyme which is now blooming like a carpet of tiny flowers, mounds of catmint, and plantings of penstemon, all of which the bees, both honey and bumble, love....your bouquets in their almost mysterious looking setting are lovely, but I especially enjoyed the table leg and foot on that great rug. That is a wonderful photo. Diane

Thank you for taking the time to post the pictures. Yes those are claw feet. I also have an antique claw foot table, but not nearly as ornate as yours. Antiques are a passion of mine and I refinish a lot of oak furniture but the oak mantle for the fireplace unfortunately is my last piece as I ran out of room. But just in the nick of time I ran across garden web and the rose forum. Now I have a new passion fueled by everyone's beautiful pictures. Thanks!

Who knew that we had table leg fans here? I'm glad you both enjoyed them. Diane, that is a recently purchased "summer rug". I have a darker one with navy blue and reds for winter, and decided I wanted a lighter look for summer. Marge, I've found that when one door closes another one opens. When I thought I'd plumbed the depths of antique roses I discovered a passion for antique Chinese porcelain and off I went on a whole new adventure. Just as with roses it wasn't just a matter of collecting something pretty; it was an area that requires much study, and nowadays the very essential knowledge of how to differentiate the genuine from the fake. With the house filled and scads of money spent, I rediscovered my passion for interior decoration since after ten years I was bored with everything and the interiors needed freshening. I've had great fun and enjoy the house so much more, but I'm poor again and so will take a little vacation......until I find something else to be passionate about. The nice thing is that the old interests are still there, although somewhat muted, so that there is much to take up my time happily. Alas, it hardly leaves time for cooking and cleaning......

The marjoram is truly beautiful. You've inspired me, too! And you picture confirms that Rosette Delizy is at the top of my "must grow" list. Someone said, on this forum I think, that the bold colors bear out its introduction during the roaring twenties. So now I think of Jay Gatsby and Phryne Fisher whenever I see her. :)

...apart from the lovely roses and other delights, I'd really like to know the name of that yellow flower in the first photo, on the right...it looks like a Daylily but the foliage is quite large. Do you have the name Ingrid please? thank you...

Ken and Robin, I'm so pleased that you've decided to try the marjoram, and I hope it does spendidly in your gardens. The bees will thank you, and in addition I think it's a very ornamental and easy-care plant.

Marlorena, you have an acute eye. This is just your old garden-variety, common as dirt yellow day lily, the only difference from the others in the garden being that it's on the drip system. The leaves do look as though they're on steroids, which around here is pretty well the classification of water as far as plants are concerned.

However, now that I think about it, one other day lily is also on drip, and the broad-leaved one is a slightly paler yellow so it may have to do with the variety. Sometimes I wish plants could talk so they could tell us exactly what's up with them at all times.

aah. ok, I thought it must be a Daylily... I have some yellow ones but not as large.

Thank you...

Ingrid, I always enjoy your garden photos! I love the splashes of pastel colors amongst the green, it's beautiful and delicate. I always want to try potter and moore when i see your photos. I think what I like the most is how the bed isn't overdone. By the way, you were the reason I came across and ultimately purchased comice de tarn-et-garonne (I wrote about in a previous post). I hope I have better luck with it!

And by the way I'm dying to get my hands on a jules gravereaux!

Michael, thanks so much for your appreciation of my now rather humble garden. I hope you have great luck with Comice De Tarn-et-Garonne if I was your enabler. I feel personally responsible if I praise a rose and someone buys it and it's not a success. So much depends on differing climates, soil, diseases and a host of other things. I have no idea whether tea roses do well in your zone but if they do I think you'll like this rose. The one of the two that has more sun is quite a bit bushier and wider, and therefore also has more flowers. It's not one of the ones that has badly fried blooms in the heat, which is something I naturally find very desirable.