Reines des Violettes is one I've long admired...and so pretty with Graham Thomas.. I got Ebb Tide this year and it's also a nice purple.. and fragrant.. For me, a rose has to have an awful lot going on to win me over if it doesn't have a fragrance. I think I've only got one or two in the garden..

Beautiful! But... which one is that, Sherry - 'Reines des Violettes' or 'Ebb Tide'?

I was wrong lol

Yes Daniel, that's a young fig tree and we're so looking forward to some fruit if we can keep the birds away
I've been here since I got out of school (a very long time ago) and did live in 'Charentes' at first (cognac county, north of Bordeaux) I do seem to follow the wines and spirits, but have only visited Bordeaux. Lovely indeed.

Thank you.

wow I didn't know Burgundy and Bordeaux where so far apart I thought I read somewhere they where near one another. Guess I read wrong but Burgundy looks lovely too. Do you grow any grapes or just partake in the drinking of Burgundy's famous wines?

They're not, by American standards , but it's several hours' drive (which we don't do so readily). I have a few plants of table grapes, for the beauty and the fun of it


And I do have some dear friends who grow, process, bottle and sell Chardonnay
I make my own Crème de Cassis, also a thing Burgundy is famous for (black currant). We add it to a glass of one of the white wines (Aligoté) and make a lovely cocktail (Kir)

Very beautiful indeed Thanks for sharing. I have a few black currants and some black currant X gooseberry hybrids. Neither one is very popular in America but I like them. I grow a several Vitis rotundifolia and a very very rare vitis vinifera once thought lost in history that I grafted onto a phylloxera resistant rootstock so it would survive in my area.

As a child I remember one lady that made gooseberry pie. Picked from the bush they are pretty sour.

I have gooseberries as well - I don't do anything with those, but they're supposed to be good with game (in the sauce)...if you have hunters around.

Gooseberries are great! I remember we had two kinds of them growing wild where I grew up. one was black and one stayed kind of green with a redish blush. I used to love finding a bush of them and eating them raw. They are sweet when they are nice and ripe. Then we began to have White Pine Blister rust, a disease that needs an alternate host, and it would spread from gooseberries to pine trees. So the gooseberries had to go.

Don't think I have ever had gooseberries. Or paw paws. There is so much native fruit that is never used.

Good eye Daniel, spotting the fig tree!

In the thick of fig season now. All the hot weather has made them very sweet this year. My brown turkey figs have never grown into proper trees. They are more like a thicket. They have been growing that way since I bought the house 20 years ago. They do produce a whole lot of figs. I am up to my ears in them at the moment, and last night's rain has plumped them up. Need to pick before they split open. I leave the figs at the very top for the birds since it is almost impossible to keep them out.

I guess I was trying them before they were ripened. I have had pawpaws. We have a tree near our house

Polymerous said:Beautiful! But... which one is that, Sherry - 'Reines des Violettes' or 'Ebb Tide'?

Sorry.... that's 'Ebb Tide'