KenGourley.com - Rose Companions

Rose Companions

The photo above is from Mom's patio (thanks, Mom!), featuring the beautiful violet-blue star-shaped flowers of Clematis viticella "Polish Spirit". If you have room for a climbing rose in your garden, why not go all-out and plant a Clematis vine to go with it? Forget about the old wive's tale rule, "less is more". I say: "more is MORE!" For heaven's sake, go all-out! As long as you plant one of the deciduous Clematis varieties that can be pruned at the same time as you winter-prune your climbing rose, and as long as the specific Clematis is not so vigorous & huge as to swallow your rose (not to mention a few varieties I can think of that can swallow a house!), you'll be fine -- and the envy of your neighbors!
Besides Clematis, other classic rose companions are: Nepeta, Lavender, Rosemary, Allium (ornamental Onion), Achillea (Yarrow), Foxglove (Digitalis), and Delphinium... to name just a few! While it's true that roses do not fare well if having to compete with too many water- and nutrient-robbing roots of other aggressive plants (especially competing tree roots!), to plant certain non-invasive ground-covers, annuals, or perennials will NOT pose a problem -- gardeners in Europe have been doing it for years!! The trick is to know how to plant other plants not too close to the base of the rose, depending on the specific plant being considered. There are also plenty of plant choices for growing NEAR roses -- as a back-drop, for example, the giant spikes of Echium flowers providing excellent drama (and who in their right mind doesn't enjoy a little drama in their garden now & then?)!
Besides adding a visual feast of contributing architectural interest, softening and hiding the ugly bare rose cane's "ankles", and adding flower shapes besides "round" to look at in the rose garden, rose companions can sometimes also add another pleasant surprise: certain plants actually help deter rose pests! Think of it this way: a gardener that plants ONLY roses in their back yard, is like a cook with a very loud dinner bell that can be heard all over the neighborhood: "DINNER! TIME FOR DINNER!! JUICY, SWEET ROSES TO SUCK ON!!! COME ON, APHID FAMILY, ROUND UP ALL THE KIDS, TOO!!!! AND, FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, DON'T FORGET TO INVITE THE ANT FAMILY!!!!!" Plants from the Mint family -- Lavender, Nepeta, & Rosemary, for example -- as well as anything in the Onion family, all help to confuse (or in some cases, even deter) insect pests that attack roses. While not guaranteed to ELIMINATE garden pests (like declaring nuclear war on your garden with an arsenal of highly toxic chemicals will do), it will at least help keep garden pests in balance -- and bring a diversity of predator insects, birds, & other wildlife into your garden that will help keep those pests under control.
The rose companion plants that are photographed and listed below are ones that I have found to be the most practical, as well as visually or artistically pleasing, for planting with or near roses. As in other aspects of life, this is of course based on my own personal opinions on the subject; but, they are nevertheless opinions that come from having had many years of hard-earned gardening experience! The majority of the information that follows each photo and the plants that are mentioned in it are primarily taylor-made for Northern California gardeners, with a special emphasis on gardening in the many different micro-climates of the San Francisco Bay Area. I have worked in gardens as far south as San Jose to as far north as Ukiah, and from as far inland as Sacramento in the east to as close to the ocean in the west as just a few footsteps away from pounding surf in San Francisco's famous Seacliff neighborhood. The majority of the state of California is generally described as having a "Mediterranean" type of climate, which roughly means: warm, dry summers; mild, wet winters. Most maps that show world climate zones show San Francisco's Golden Gate as more or less the official dividing line between the end of the Mediterranean zone in the south, with the beginning of the much cooler "Maritime" climate to the north. Also if you look at any USDA plant hardiness zone map of North America, you'll notice that the majority of our state falls under either zones 8, 9, or 10 (the extreme high altitude mountain areas and inland deserts being the the exceptions) - with COASTAL California being in either zones 9 or 10. But for those of us who actually live out here in America's West Coast, neither of these two definitions adequately describe our many different weird little micro climates! Hence, thank goodness, there is a book that I HIGHLY recommend for ALL gardeners to have in each and every home, for those of us living in the western half of the continental US: Sunset's Western Garden Book! It is THE gardener's "Bible" for anyone living in America's arid "Golden West". In it you will find that the western half of the continental US is divided into very detailed and much more accurately-described climate zones, amounting to descriptions of 24 zones total. The Northern California climate zones that I have the most experience living and working in are climate zones 15, 16, and 17, with zone #17 being the foggiest of the coastal Northern California climates. For more details than I give in any of the plant descriptions below, please consult with the Sunset Western Garden Book if you live in any of the Western United States. For those living in other states or countries, whether coastal climates or not, please consult with whatever gardening book(s) are most highly recommended for your little corner of planet Earth!
As in most of the other pages on my site, If you click on the images below, you will be able to see an enlarged version... Enjoy!

Digitalis purpurea (AKA common foxglove)
There are a large variety of different kinds of foxglove that are available in nurseries today, most of which are biennials (which means it takes them a full year to get established after the seed germinates, not growing to full adult size and blooming until their second year), but a few varieties are true perennials. By far, my all-time favorite is "Sutton's Apricot", both for its wonderful height (up to 3', sometimes even 4'), and of course its fabulous color! There are a few varieties of foxglove that are drought-tolerant, but beware that some of these can also be a bit invasive, so read up on them thoroughly before unthinkingly just buying! On average, though, most foxglove varieties thrive and bloom their best with ample watering. They are also poisonous, but this is actually a GOOD thing in your garden, because both deer and gophers will leave them completely alone! I recently made a wonderful discovery about foxgloves, in fact: Inside the Castro Valley deer-fenced rose garden where I just happened to plant the heaviest concentration of baby foxglove plants, NONE of those roses planted nearby had any evidence of gopher activity! All this, along with their incredibly beautiful vertical element that they bring to a rose garden, make this my number one favorite companion plant for roses (with Nepeta coming in at a very close second place)! This photograph was taken in Golden Gate Park, not far from the newly remodeled Conservatory.

Bearded Iris, Tulipa "Apricot Beauty", and Cerastium tomentosum (AKA "Snow-in-Summer") (from left to right)
None of these plants I recommend planting any closer than three feet away from the base of any rose plant, and even farther away from any large climbing rose plant. Both the Bearded Iris and also Snow-in-Summer prefer soil that is a bit on the dry side, so to keep your much thirstier roses happy (as well as to keep the Cerastium tomentosum from crawling all over any rose's base), I recommend at least a three to four foot distance from any rose. In this photo, although it doesn't show it, the beautiful red Hybrid Tea rose, "Ingrid Bergman", was planted by my friend Chip several years ago located approximately three feet down-slope from the Iris - a PERFECT way to keep both plants happy, as well as a visually stunning combination to look at as well. So you can see a photo of both the Iris and the Ingrid Bergman rose in full bloom together, I will eventually get that photo included in my Gallery of Roses page. In the meantime, although this "Apricot Beaty" tulip is really just incidental, it's certainly beautiful to look at earlier in the spring when most roses are a good month or more from even showing their first bloom of the season. Tulips, by the way, do NOT come back well the following year in our mild coastal winter climate. They need a much colder winter in order to repeat their lovely flowers year after year. In the San Francisco Bay Area, it's best to just dig up all tulips, bulbs and all, and sadly just toss them after their flowering has finished - or you'll be sadly disappointed if you attempt to leave them in the ground! Just purchase new tulip bulbs the following fall, refrigerate them for several weeks, and then plant them in late November - a small price to have to pay for living in what otherwise is pretty nearly "gardening Paradise" here in Northern California!

Large-cupped Narcissus / Rosemarinus "Ken Taylor"
If you look on the far right side of this photograph, you can see some early spring rose foliage of the English rose, "Tamora". Unlike tulips, daffodils do repeat their bloom well in Northern California, coming back year after year! And, one more plus about daffodils - they are poisonous to both the deer and also gophers - so, no worries about those hungry critters not leaving them alone in your garden! Other spring bulbs that do well in coastal Northern California include: Muscari, Hyacinth, Freesia, Watsonia, and many different types of Lilies, to name just a few. The San Francisco Bay Area has a climate that is very similar to the Mediterranean region, South Africa, some portions of both Australia and New Zealand, as well as central Chile in South America. This means that plants which are native to these regions of the world do very well also here in California. The particular variety of Rosemary photographed here is one of my favorites because of a darker blue in its color than most rosemary varieties - plus it also has the nice habit of BOTH being somewhat upright, as well as having trails a bit, too! The daffodil varieties are the soft yellow "Ice Follies", and the salmon-pink "Salome", both of which bloom at least a month or more before any rose bloom shows its fragrant flower head! I tend to recommend not planting any of these plants in this photo any closer than three feet away from a rose, at the very minimum, especially since the horticultural needs of both daffodils and rosemary are very different from those of roses. But having these companion plants relatively "nearby" is certainly okay, as well as providing a gorgeous early spring bonus!

Garden with focus on pinks and mauves
Here is a photograph of a garden that I've worked in for many years in the Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco. The garden is right at its peak of spring bloom, which is usually during the months of May and June. The home owner loves to have pinks and mauves for her primary color theme in her back yard, but she also has included silvery foliaged plants like the ground cover Snow-in-Summer, as well as the burgundy foliage of Barberry, both of which nicely compliment the flower colors. The other companion plants in this photo include: the tall spiked stems of Foxglove, the purple and white daisy-shaped flowers of wild Cineraria, the slimmer spiked blooms of Linaria, a mound of the sturdy ground cover Erigeron (AKA "Santa Barbara Daisy"), as well as purple Penstemon (but not noticeably in bloom in this photo). The roses in the background, from left to right, are: the ivory-white English rose "Dove"; the powerfully fragrant deep pink Gertrude Jekyll rose; the single-petalled Hybrid Musk rose, "Sally Holmes"; the apricot-colored Climbing Royal Sunset rose; and the soft pink Hybrid Tea rose, "New Zealand". Between Sally Holmes and Royal Sunset, by the way, is a beautiful but very tall-growing Sambucus (AKA Elderberry). A rusty-colored metal bird bath is in front of the roses, in the center towards the back of the garden... "A bit over-the-top", you might be asking yourself? "Why yes!", is my answer, "and why not!!" You should see this rose garden in real-life, rather than just this photograph which doesn't do it justice, as this garden is simply GORGEOUS!!!

Garden adjacent to California Live Oak
In this garden down the Peninsula, out of view to the right of this photograph happens to be a large old native Oak tree, presenting a very difficult situation for both the California Live Oak and the roses growing not too far away. Because the Oak tree needs to have its root zone as summer-dry as possible (because that is what it is naturally used to having, being a California native plant), and because roses perform their best with supplemental watering during the summer months, meeting these two opposite horticultural needs created a constant clash for both types of plants involved. Fortunately, the roses were planted just far enough away from the Oak's tree trunk to make the risk somewhat worth the trouble; plus, both of these rose varieties, the English rose Abraham Darby and the Hybrid Musk rose Sally Holmes, happen to also be shade-tolerant (Abraham Darby being less so than Sally Holmes). The old Olive tree on the left side of the photo also prefers to remain dry during the summer, so the large rock and the lavender "Goodwin Creek" were good choices to place near the Olive's trunk. The trailing ground cover nearest to the Olive's trunk, Vinca major, is also very drought-tolerant, and as well prefers shade.

Echium candicans (AKA "Pride of Madeira")
The dramatic huge flowering spikes of Echium candicans are fantastic for planting as a backdrop near roses; but I recommend Echium be planted at least six to eight feet away from wherever your irrigation system for the rose garden is. While Echium will look a bit more lush and full if given an occasional rare deep summer watering, to do so on a regular basis is totally unnecessary, as well as counter-productive. Another form of Echium that has become naturalized along many part of the Coast Highway, especially around Pacifica's "Devil's Slide" area and south to Moss Beach, is Echium wildpretii (AKA "Tower of Jewels"). Talk about a plant that looks like it came right out of a Dr. Suess book! This variety of Echium is both gorgeous when in full bloom, and also a bit comical! Both varieties of Echium are completely self-sufficient and 100% drought-tolerant along or near the coast. There are only a few completely drought-tolerant roses, however, that could be planted and grown under the same degree of summer-dry circumstances - the yellow Lady Banks rose and the old Polyantha Mme. Cecile Brunner, being the 2 most famous drought-tolerant roses that most immediately come to mind.

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	Digitalis purpurea (AKA common foxglove) There are a large variety of different kinds of foxglove that are available in nurseries today, most of which are biennials (which means it takes them a full year to get established after the seed germinates, not growing to full adult size and blooming until their second year), but a few varieties are true perennials. By far, my all-time favorite is "Sutton's Apricot", both for its wonderful height (up to 3', sometimes even 4'), and of course its fabulous color! There are a few varieties of foxglove that are drought-tolerant, but beware that some of these can also be a bit invasive, so read up on them thoroughly before unthinkingly just buying! On average, though, most foxglove varieties thrive and bloom their best with ample watering. They are also poisonous, but this is actually a GOOD thing in your garden, because both deer and gophers will leave them completely alone! I recently made a wonderful discovery about foxgloves, in fact: Inside the Castro Valley deer-fenced rose garden where I just happened to plant the heaviest concentration of baby foxglove plants, NONE of those roses planted nearby had any evidence of gopher activity! All this, along with their incredibly beautiful vertical element that they bring to a rose garden, make this my number one favorite companion plant for roses (with Nepeta coming in at a very close second place)! This photograph was taken in Golden Gate Park, not far from the newly remodeled Conservatory.
	Bearded Iris, Tulipa "Apricot Beauty", and Cerastium tomentosum (AKA "Snow-in-Summer") (from left to right) None of these plants I recommend planting any closer than three feet away from the base of any rose plant, and even farther away from any large climbing rose plant. Both the Bearded Iris and also Snow-in-Summer prefer soil that is a bit on the dry side, so to keep your much thirstier roses happy (as well as to keep the Cerastium tomentosum from crawling all over any rose's base), I recommend at least a three to four foot distance from any rose. In this photo, although it doesn't show it, the beautiful red Hybrid Tea rose, "Ingrid Bergman", was planted by my friend Chip several years ago located approximately three feet down-slope from the Iris - a PERFECT way to keep both plants happy, as well as a visually stunning combination to look at as well. So you can see a photo of both the Iris and the Ingrid Bergman rose in full bloom together, I will eventually get that photo included in my Gallery of Roses page. In the meantime, although this "Apricot Beaty" tulip is really just incidental, it's certainly beautiful to look at earlier in the spring when most roses are a good month or more from even showing their first bloom of the season. Tulips, by the way, do NOT come back well the following year in our mild coastal winter climate. They need a much colder winter in order to repeat their lovely flowers year after year. In the San Francisco Bay Area, it's best to just dig up all tulips, bulbs and all, and sadly just toss them after their flowering has finished - or you'll be sadly disappointed if you attempt to leave them in the ground! Just purchase new tulip bulbs the following fall, refrigerate them for several weeks, and then plant them in late November - a small price to have to pay for living in what otherwise is pretty nearly "gardening Paradise" here in Northern California!
	Large-cupped Narcissus / Rosemarinus "Ken Taylor" If you look on the far right side of this photograph, you can see some early spring rose foliage of the English rose, "Tamora". Unlike tulips, daffodils do repeat their bloom well in Northern California, coming back year after year! And, one more plus about daffodils - they are poisonous to both the deer and also gophers - so, no worries about those hungry critters not leaving them alone in your garden! Other spring bulbs that do well in coastal Northern California include: Muscari, Hyacinth, Freesia, Watsonia, and many different types of Lilies, to name just a few. The San Francisco Bay Area has a climate that is very similar to the Mediterranean region, South Africa, some portions of both Australia and New Zealand, as well as central Chile in South America. This means that plants which are native to these regions of the world do very well also here in California. The particular variety of Rosemary photographed here is one of my favorites because of a darker blue in its color than most rosemary varieties - plus it also has the nice habit of BOTH being somewhat upright, as well as having trails a bit, too! The daffodil varieties are the soft yellow "Ice Follies", and the salmon-pink "Salome", both of which bloom at least a month or more before any rose bloom shows its fragrant flower head! I tend to recommend not planting any of these plants in this photo any closer than three feet away from a rose, at the very minimum, especially since the horticultural needs of both daffodils and rosemary are very different from those of roses. But having these companion plants relatively "nearby" is certainly okay, as well as providing a gorgeous early spring bonus!
	Garden with focus on pinks and mauves Here is a photograph of a garden that I've worked in for many years in the Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco. The garden is right at its peak of spring bloom, which is usually during the months of May and June. The home owner loves to have pinks and mauves for her primary color theme in her back yard, but she also has included silvery foliaged plants like the ground cover Snow-in-Summer, as well as the burgundy foliage of Barberry, both of which nicely compliment the flower colors. The other companion plants in this photo include: the tall spiked stems of Foxglove, the purple and white daisy-shaped flowers of wild Cineraria, the slimmer spiked blooms of Linaria, a mound of the sturdy ground cover Erigeron (AKA "Santa Barbara Daisy"), as well as purple Penstemon (but not noticeably in bloom in this photo). The roses in the background, from left to right, are: the ivory-white English rose "Dove"; the powerfully fragrant deep pink Gertrude Jekyll rose; the single-petalled Hybrid Musk rose, "Sally Holmes"; the apricot-colored Climbing Royal Sunset rose; and the soft pink Hybrid Tea rose, "New Zealand". Between Sally Holmes and Royal Sunset, by the way, is a beautiful but very tall-growing Sambucus (AKA Elderberry). A rusty-colored metal bird bath is in front of the roses, in the center towards the back of the garden... "A bit over-the-top", you might be asking yourself? "Why yes!", is my answer, "and why not!!" You should see this rose garden in real-life, rather than just this photograph which doesn't do it justice, as this garden is simply GORGEOUS!!!
	Garden adjacent to California Live Oak In this garden down the Peninsula, out of view to the right of this photograph happens to be a large old native Oak tree, presenting a very difficult situation for both the California Live Oak and the roses growing not too far away. Because the Oak tree needs to have its root zone as summer-dry as possible (because that is what it is naturally used to having, being a California native plant), and because roses perform their best with supplemental watering during the summer months, meeting these two opposite horticultural needs created a constant clash for both types of plants involved. Fortunately, the roses were planted just far enough away from the Oak's tree trunk to make the risk somewhat worth the trouble; plus, both of these rose varieties, the English rose Abraham Darby and the Hybrid Musk rose Sally Holmes, happen to also be shade-tolerant (Abraham Darby being less so than Sally Holmes). The old Olive tree on the left side of the photo also prefers to remain dry during the summer, so the large rock and the lavender "Goodwin Creek" were good choices to place near the Olive's trunk. The trailing ground cover nearest to the Olive's trunk, Vinca major, is also very drought-tolerant, and as well prefers shade.
	Echium candicans (AKA "Pride of Madeira") The dramatic huge flowering spikes of Echium candicans are fantastic for planting as a backdrop near roses; but I recommend Echium be planted at least six to eight feet away from wherever your irrigation system for the rose garden is. While Echium will look a bit more lush and full if given an occasional rare deep summer watering, to do so on a regular basis is totally unnecessary, as well as counter-productive. Another form of Echium that has become naturalized along many part of the Coast Highway, especially around Pacifica's "Devil's Slide" area and south to Moss Beach, is Echium wildpretii (AKA "Tower of Jewels"). Talk about a plant that looks like it came right out of a Dr. Suess book! This variety of Echium is both gorgeous when in full bloom, and also a bit comical! Both varieties of Echium are completely self-sufficient and 100% drought-tolerant along or near the coast. There are only a few completely drought-tolerant roses, however, that could be planted and grown under the same degree of summer-dry circumstances - the yellow Lady Banks rose and the old Polyantha Mme. Cecile Brunner, being the 2 most famous drought-tolerant roses that most immediately come to mind.