wow, I had a similar experience, when I was new to growing roses i knew I wanted only the most fragrant roses so I looked up those that had won fragrance awards and bought a 'Sunsprite' Oh, Yuck! I hated the licorice scent and gave the bush away to a neighbor who was delighted with it. These are the roses whose scents i do love any rose that smells like what we think a red rose should smell like ( similar to that of a Damask rose) Autumn Damask (a remontant Damask rose) Cecille Brunner, in all its forms, climbing, Spray and original, mostly of damask, a bit of softness almost like face powder and a finish of white pepper from its China lineage. Glendora' some damask scent with other scent notes. Rosa moschata (the sweet smelling white Musk rose) Most pink Noisette roses smell of damask rose and clove to me, Catos Cluster and Blush Noisette. Bourbon roses whose scent I enjoy; Gloire des Rosomanes' lightly fragrant but has a wonderful spicy scent on its flower stems near the bloom. it has a bloom shape more like a China. I love the varied scent notes found in the old garden Tea class (not Hybrid Tea) of which Mrs. B.R. Cant is a member. Anna Olivier ' the strongest smelling old garden Tea in my experience has a good dose of damask scent from the Bourbon line in the Tea class, I think, plus fruit and spice notes. Marachal Niel, smells yummy. Etoille de Lyon which an author described as having a "delicious scent" to me it smells of honeysuckle and chantilly cream. Comtesse Emmeline de Guigne' which to me smells of apricots and ripe plums. Lady Hillingdon, ripe apricots and something I cannot describe. once bloomers: white 'Rose of York' has a heavenly scent, a bit of damask and a bit of Ponds face cream type scent notes. Altaica which is an r. spinosissima, a friend said it smelled of a "good quality French hand soap" Lux.

Although a lot of the plants mentioned come under the heading of groundcover (covers the ground), to me the definition of groundcover means plant it and let it go with no maintenance. Plants like geraniums, dianthus, bleeding heart, and other similar ones mentioned require some maintenance. After the first blooms of geraniums if the foliage is ratty, I cut it down to generate fresh growth. I think of that type of plant as "front of the border" or "edger". If I had a large swath of "groundcover" on a bank for example, I would not want the huge job of deadheading it, let alone, cutting it back. Full fledged "groundcover" should not require deadheading. Well, on 2nd thought, I do deadhead my ajuga, only because it is in a small well contained patch between the patio and garage door and is very visible. I have a hill covered with wintercreeper amongs trees and shrubs. It is pretty large. zero maintenance is the only realistic possibility (unless one can hire gardeners to do huge tasks!! LOL). I guess the type of groundcover to use is affected by the amount of ground it needs to cover. I thought of another "groundcover" that is actually a shrub. Russian Cypress. Microbiota decussata. A nice alternative to junipers, the classic groundcover, but unlike junipers, RC can take some shade. not green in winter... bronze/grey. I have a few scattered about and they add nice texture to mixed beds. Not really appropriate for exclusively perennial beds. I think they can get as wide as 8' or so. Mine are about 4' wide after 3 years.

The annual kinds were from seed. I think the seed company put annual but it's really a perennial in warmer zones. I've had lots of plants like that that the seed companies say are annuals. Verbenas have always been evergreen for me, so there is no doubt that it wasn't reseeding. Lemon verbena!!! It's a wonderful plant. No flowers, though. The leaves smell so delicious and you can add them to your tea. I grab some leaves every time I walk past them. Hardiness is iffy here but it should do fine in zone 9. It's come back for me for the last 2 years but I took cuttings just in case. Thanks for the hint on trimming back the verbena. Some of it has moved right out of the beds and into the yard and if I cut it it will be gone for good. Maybe next Feb I'll remember. One verbena that no one has mentioned is verbena bonsiensis (sp?). It is really tall, not creeping at all. It blooms purple on the top and blooms all summer. I have it throughout the rose garden. Melva, Verbena is really easy to root so if you see anyone with a kind you want then you should take cuttings.

Interesting thread, thanks for sharing all your thoughts and experiences. My dad was a builder in S. Cal when I was a kid, and we always had walls more like what Kats pictured, with stucco exteriors. Up here in the PNW I've always had orange peel interior walls. My son's house is knock down and even that looks better to me, but maybe it's just the change. In my last house I lived with the orange peel for years and hated it. Finally, I sanded off (and probably ate) tons of orange peel so I could wallpaper. It was an awful job. Then I papered, not all rooms but most. Everyone who visited loved the wallpaper, or at least they said so. I finally really loved the look of my house in every room. Walls that had seemed cold and plastic warmed up like a big ol' hug and people loved being there. When I went to sell, the r.e. folks said the wallpaper had to go. So my son and I steamed and peeled off all the wallpaper (another awful job, including clear up to vaulted ceilings in the LR) and my son sprayed the orange peel back on the walls and then I painted everything in the whole house. The house looked brand spanking new, with new or refinished floors throughout. Turns out the folks who bought the house would have loved the wallpaper as their style of decorating was the same as mine. I probably could have just painted, too, without putting the texture back. Live and learn. Here in this house I have wallpapered only above a chair rail in my bedroom and just went right over the orange peel. It does show through a little but it's not too bad I guess. At least if I remove the paper I won't have to re-spray the walls. I still haven't decided if I want to keep the paper (a very subtle thin sage/white Ivey Leage stripe). I hate the orange peel texture. I just don't like the look of it. But my experience is so limited. Maybe if I had flat walls I wouldn't like them and would decide the orange peel is better, I dunno. At least it was heartening to read that some of you like the orange peel. I don't want to sand again in this house -- at least not whole walls, though if I do faux wainscot I will do the lower walls, and that will be only on the staircases. IF. My daughter's house had horrible old dark fake panelling in the master. I happen to absolutely adore painted panelling. She hates it. She troweled venetian plaster over the whole thing, another awful job. I had wainscot panelled my hallway and family room (a big job) with fake panelling in my last house, in a medium fairly heavy grained wood look. I loved it! I had some dogs at the time that would scratch themselves by leaning against the hall walls and walking down the hall and I was forever washing those walls (and bathing the dogs pretty often). To paint or wallpaper above the panelling one only had half the time, half the work, and half the cost, which was a wonderful bonus since the wainscoting never was painted, didn't show dirt and cleaned easily. When I got the house ready for sale on the r.e. agents' advice, I primed and painted the wainscoting plus all the woodwork in the house stark white. I painted the top of the family room and hallway in Navaho White. To my surprise, the subtle difference in the two colors looked absolutely fabulous! But I'll bet with her dogs the new owner is spending a lot of time with a scrub bucket in hand washing the white wainscot. However... I'm considering white wainscoting here even with my five dogs because I love the look of it. With the bottom panelled it makes the more limited amount of texture on the walls easier to live with and gives the walls a better overall look, IMO. Most of this house has white woodwork and I love the look but I'm forever washing it and repainting it. The rooms with their floor-to-ceiling orange peel drives me nuts. Sure sounds like people have strong opinions on wall texture, so at least I'm not alone in that. lol