Some Perennial Companion Plants for Roses

I wrote a post on companion plants for roses just after I started this blog, and it turned out to be one of my most popular posts.

Hermann Lindecke and feverfew (chrysanthemum parthenium 'Aureum')

Gladiolus byzantinus with Rosette Delizy and cl. Cecile Brunner

I thought it might be time for an update. Below are a few notes on perennials, my favorite type of companion for roses. Even though I like them best, I do also grow many other flowering plants. Among bulbs,  freesia, Dutch irises, tazetta daffodils, lilies, smaller gladioli all work for me and are not too invasive.
























Shrubs are good for contrasting foliage and to give the garden structure. I grow mostly flowering and evergreen shrubs.

My Purple Pavement is vigorous and coexists quite well with a common snowball (viburnum opulus 'Roseum'). They both sucker:)

 Loropetalums and spireas are particularly pretty to me and seem to generally get along with roses. Viburnums not so much.

'Old Korbel Gold' lost its battle with Summer Snowflake viburnum (v. plicatum tomentosum) and had to be dug out and potted up this summer. 

 However, including all these other plants would be like writing a small encyclopedia, and I do not feel up to the task :)

Zephirine Drouhin and spanish lavender (l. stoechas 'Otto Quast') with some Goodwin Creek Grey lavender surround my garden bench

Selecting plants is easy.

A California towhee examining some daisies (chrysanthemum frutescens)

 I choose those that like roughly the same cultural conditions as roses, especially in terms of tolerance of or preference for regular water and fertilizer applications.

A foxglove with Souvenir de Claudius Denoyel in the back

 Most full sun to part shade plants work for me. Many gardeners look for plants that offer some contrast to roses in terms of color and shape of blooms and foliage.

Magnificent Perfume next to linum lewisii, a reliably perennial flax with short lived flowers and a delicate airy growth habit. It does well on very little water

I particularly try to look for something that is not very attractive to snails and slugs :), but that does provide food and cover to bees, butterflies and birds.

Agastache hybrid 'Red Fortune'

One rule I have discovered is that there are no hard and fast rules.

Carding Mill and a tagless salvia

 Most of my garden came together from successive plantings of impulse purchases wherever I could find a patch of bare ground.

Scabiosa ochroleuca

Although I seem to have acquired some knowledge, my ignorance is vast.

Barcelona and geranium "Rozanne"

 I do not anticipate ever attaining that perfect state of boredom when I can simply sit down and predict with certainty how plants will grow in my garden.

'Hoag House Cream' with lavandula angustifolia 'Potpourri White' and scabiosa columbaria 'Harlequin Blue'

One of the first perennials I bought was verbena bonariensis.

I had an idea that its airy stems would grow through the roses using their canes for support. Not so. It grows away from the roses into the sun, reaches 6 feet high and, if it windy (it always is, here) flops over. By itself it is a coarse, ungainly plant, though easy to grow, not needing much water or fertilizer. 

Its fragrant flowers are an important source of nectar and attract many pollinators.

I grow many penstemons, species and hybrids. In my experience penstemons do not like hard pruning: they do not come back well, stay small and don't bloom as much. Nowadays I only cut them back by not more than 1/3.

A hybrid penstemon with Julia Child

On the other hand, they become huge, the stems flop to the ground and root through the mulch :) Despite their reputation for drought tolerance, all my penstemons, species included, do well with or actually prefer regular water.

Hybrid penstemon 'Midnight'

I love pelargoniums even though a lot of them seem to me to be too showy and clash with roses. Many die back in our winters with scented geraniums especially hard hit. I have twice lost most scented varieties I collected and intend to resist as hard as I can spending any more money on them in future.

A variegated scented leaf pelargonium (p. graveolens hybrid)

Over the years, I have accumulated many lavender plants of several types.



 Lavender is a ubiquitous plant in a Mediterranean climate, so I will only mention a few less well known hybrids. All my Madrid series lavenders (l. stoechas crosses) rebloom. Viridis lavenders bloom only once (and not too long at that).

L. viridis 'Tiara Blue'

 My lavender is regularly but sparingly watered (it's mostly drip irrigation).



Potted lavender dries out very quickly and needs to be watered frequently. In my experience, once lavender shows conspicuous signs of drying out it becomes difficult to restore its vigor.

Many other herbs grow well with roses in my climate. My favorite has become oregano.

Origanum sipyleum 'Showy Pink'

 I have over a dozen plants, culinary and ornamental, that do very well on drip.

Origanum laevigatum 'Hopley's Purple'

I bought several rehmannia plants a few years ago because I liked their shaggy foxglove look. I planted all of them, as instructed, in dappled shade. For the last plant, there was no room, and I regretfully put it into an almost full sun location along a west facing stone wall.



 Interestingly, it was the only one that survived :) It has been spreading steadily and is now about a 10 foot long planting that blooms all summer long meandering through roses and sending flower spikes where it wants. Beautiful and no trouble at all so far.

Over the years, many of my roses have grown much bigger than expected and started shading out the plants that grow with them.

Campanula primulifolia

The biggest challenge I am facing now is maintaining a balance: not to sacrifice too many blooms by pruning my roses too hard, yet making sure there is enough room for the companion plants.

Cl. Cecile Brunner hugging Azure Bush germander (teucrium fruticans 'Azureum')

 It is a tricky, but fun experiment.

Penelope with some penstemons and osteospermum daisies