ROSES AS
Companion Plants
Mixing other flowers and plants in with your roses can provide your garden with more
continuous color throughout the year, along with other benefits. Contributing authors
Michael Marriott and Teresa Byington share their insights.
24
AMERICAN ROSE
|
ROSE.ORG
Gardening with Roses
contributing editor Paul Zimmerman
Insights by Michael Marriott, Senior Rosarian, David Austin Roses
WITH THEIR BEAUTIFUL INDIVIDUAL FLOWERS, wonderful fragrances and long flowering season roses are
one of the very few plants that you would consider
Roses generally have large flowers and so any plant
with small flowers like geranium, gaura, crambe, heuchera and aquilegia will help emphasize the rose.
ABOVE: 'Princess Alexandra of Kent' with Phacelia tanacetifolia, 'Harlow Carr' with salvia alium and 'Lady of Shalott'
OPPOSITE: 'Teasing Georgia' with Achillea ‘Paprika’
planting a whole garden of and indeed a well planted
and maintained rose garden can be a splendid thing.
However, mixed up with other plants they can look
even more beautiful; the contrast in shape, size and
color helping to emphasize the rose.
Perennials are the plants that immediately spring to
mind when thinking of the mixed border, but in fact biennials and annuals can be excellent and in some ways
better as they are easily changed from year to year and
are less invasive.
photos courtesy David Austin Roses
Plants with blue flowers are very valuable and will complement any color of rose—some of my favorites being
nigella, geranium, delphinium, campanula, viola, eryngium and echinops. The shape of the plant is worth
considering, too. Tall spiky plants like lupins, verbascums, delphiniums and kniphofias will contrast with the
informal rounded shape of most shrub roses.
Why not also consider planting roses with flowering
shrubs after all roses are flowering shrubs themselves.
The wilder looking shrub roses with single or semi douJANUARY/FEBRUARY|2016
25
Gardening with Roses
ABOVE: 'The Pilgrim' and Lychnis coronaria ‘Alba’ OPPOSITE: 'Munstead Wood'
ble flowers are most effective with shrubs like philadelphus, calycanthus, deutzia and hydrangea.
When choosing what to plant with roses it is important
to consider flowering time. If you are trying to achieve
a beautiful color scheme it is of little value if the companion doesn’t flower at the same time as the rose. So
at the various times that your roses are flowering look
around to see what else is in flower. As most roses repeat flower you can still create a beautiful border with
a long flowering season.
A number of perennials have rather thuggish tendencies, their aim being to dominate all around them. Roses really don’t appreciate being crowded right round
the base, it will limit air movement and they will take
the lion’s share of water and nutrients leaving little for
the rose. Try to aim for the flowers of the rose and the
companion to cuddle nicely up to each other although
not so far that there is bare soil nor too close that one
overwhelms the other.
Apart from the aesthetic value, mixed planting also
helps to keep roses healthy. Pure rose gardens are
26
AMERICAN ROSE
|
ROSE.ORG
monocultures and the worst thing for encouraging
the spread of pests and diseases. For the control of
pests encourage as many beneficial insects into the
garden as possible, some of the best plants for this
being nepeta, eryngium, echium, cerinthe, phacelia,
solidago, anchusa and digitalis. The different types of
leaves will also confuse pests and make them less likely
to lay eggs. This works with diseases, too; they will be
far less of a problem. The combination of careful variety choice, good soil preparation and a mixed planting
will mean little or no pests and diseases.
Which roses look best with other plants? My favorites
are the more informal shrubby varieties—David Austin
English roses, old garden roses, hybrid musks, rugosas and wild roses. Some of the more informal, less
brightly colored floribundas can be good, but I think
the hybrid teas with their very formal upright growth
habit and bright flowers are generally not successful.
Do try livening up your perennial border with some
roses; they will add extra sparkle and fragrance to your
border as well as some extra structure during the winter months and in fact be a total and absolute delight!
Gardening with Roses
Insights by Teresa Byington, thegardendiary.com, rosechatpodcast.com
IN LIFE AND IN GARDENS the right companions
make the difference. The right companions can make
us stronger, cover up our short comings and enhance
our beauty.
My garden style is cottage gardening. I grow everything from trees and shrubs to herbs and roses. They
work beautifully together to give me just what I want—
continuous beauty. In fact, once we get through one of
the midwest’s hard cold winters, I am looking for fireworks and fragrance. Nothing adds the fireworks and
fragrance like roses. In April, lilacs give me beauty and
fragrance that garden dreams are made of; however,
in a few weeks they are finished—for a year. Forsythia
make a huge showing, too, bringing all that yellow
sunshine into our world—for a few weeks. Just as I am
saying good bye to those lovely shrubs, along come
the rugosa and old garden roses with an explosion of
blooms that fill the garden and many vases to the brim
with beauty, fragrance and over the top charm. Most
of the rugosas don’t stop with just one bloom cycle,
they give you blooms throughout the growing season.
photos courtesy David Austin Roses
Just as the rugosas are taking a break, here come the
old garden roses and believe me their blooming season will continue all the way to fall. There is no shrub
or perennial that gives me season-long bloom like old
garden roses.
Whether you are like me and have lots of space, just a
few nooks and crannies you would like to brighten or
have containers on a balcony that need some punch,
there is an old garden rose for you. Old garden roses
come in all sizes and colors and will take no more care
than any other plant or shrub in your garden. Give
them sunshine, water, a bit of fertilizer, a quick trim to
the spent blooms, then just stand back and enjoy. (And
have your vases ready to fill and share.)
When deciding on companions, the first thing to consider is compatible growing conditions. Here are two
companions that have their relationship all worked out
and have become a match made in heaven: roses and
clematis!
JANUARY/FEBRUARY|2016
27
Gardening with Roses
CLOCKWISE: Etoile de Violette with 'New Dawn' climber; 'Quietness' this lovely Buck Rose is a part of the Earth Kind series
and is one of the most beautiful blooms in my garden; 'Beverly', if you are looking for an easy care, no spray, fragrant hybrid
tea, look no further.
The rose is our National Floral Emblem and the most
popular and beloved flower. So, if you have shied away
from roses in the past thinking they are divas that take
more time and energy than you have—think again! It’s
not just hair styles that have changed since the 80s.
The new Millennium brought us new classes of easy
28
AMERICAN ROSE
|
ROSE.ORG
care, sustainable roses and we are getting more and
more every year.
Maybe it’s time to dress up your shrub borders and add
more blooms to your flower beds with the new rose
kids on the block. They will bring the fireworks!
photos courtesy Teresa Byington