Roses and Shrubs need friends or companion plants around them for various reasons including pest and disease control, longer season of interest and aesthetics. Learn how to get your roses healthier by surrounding them with companion plants which help repel bad bugs while encouraging beneficial insects. Discover how to extend the flowering season of your mixed border by underplanting your shrubs and roses with a succession of flowers that will reinforce the beauty of their blooms. Make sure you select ornamental grasses, perennials, annuals or shrubs that have the same growing requirements as your favorite roses and shrubs. Find plant combinations that will enhance your landscape and please your eye!

Underplanting Roses and Shrubs Guides

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A Cheerful Idea For Your Early Spring Garden

Bringing color before most plants have ventured a leaf above ground, Hellebores (Helleborus) are invaluable additions to the shade garden and provide gardeners with some of the greatest pleasures in winter. But rather than let these charming beauties bloom lonesomely in a bare patch, give them companion plants and layer your plantings for maximum drama.

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A Fabulous Duo: Rose 'Benjamin Britten' & Geranium 'Johnson's Blue'

Hardy geraniums are classic rose companions. They are great at insinuating themselves among the bare legs of roses, helping to reinforce the beauty of their romantic blooms and prevent diseases.

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A Fabulous Duo: Rose 'Bonica' and Lavender 'Hidcote'

Ideal for planting alongside an informal path, Lavender forms a magnificent hedge with its attractive foliage, colorful blossoms and delightful fragrance that entices the senses!

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A Fabulous Duo: Rose 'Crocus Rose' & Phacelia tanacetifolia

Roses are healthier when provided with companion plants to help repel destructive bugs while encouraging beneficial insects. Some flowering plants attract beneficial insects that help to control insect pests on your roses.

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A Fabulous Duo: Rose 'Gertrude Jekyll' & Geranium 'Brookside'

Hardy geraniums are classic rose companions. They are great at insinuating themselves among the bare legs of roses, helping to reinforce the beauty of their romantic blooms and prevent diseases.

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A Fabulous Duo: Rose 'Gertrude Jekyll' & Nepeta 'Six Hills Giant'

While the list of plants that look great when planted between and under roses is endless, Catmint (Nepeta) remains a favorite companion for roses.

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A Fabulous Duo: Rose 'Grace' & Heuchera 'Marmalade'

Perfect for hiding the leggy stems of rose bushes, Heuchera (Coral Bells) make soft ground covers around their bases, their mounds of scalloped-edged foliage adding texture and interest to mixed borders.

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A Fabulous Duo: Rose 'Harlow Carr' & Lavender 'Hidcote'

One of the most venerable shrub companions for perennials is roses. Paired with classic partners like lavender, their exquisite flowers and fragrance create glorious borders for weeks of color and scent.

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A Fabulous Duo: Rose 'Princess Alexandra of Kent' & Phacelia tanacetifolia

With unusually large flowers of a warm, glowing pink rich of a fresh Tea fragrance, Rose 'Princess Alexandra of Kent' creates a memorable display when paired with the abundant and long-lasting bell-shaped flowers of Phacelia tanacetifolia (Fiddleneck). Aside from being very ornamental, this hardy annual is a perfect rose companion plant as it attracts scores of beneficial insects

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A Fabulous Duo: Rose 'Teasing Georgia' & Achillea 'Paprika'

Roses are healthier when we provide them with companion plants which help repel destructive bugs and pests while encouraging beneficial insects.

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A Fabulous Duo: Rose 'The Mayflower' and Penstemon 'Stapleford Gem'

Since 'The Mayflower' is a shrub rose which repeat flowers with exceptional continuity and is rarely without flowers, you will enjoy this lovely combo for many, many weeks!

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A Fabulous Duo: Rose 'Wisley 2008' & Aster x frikartii 'Monch'

Lavender-blue daisies blend beautifully with many roses, creating scenes that shine with living color. Here, the fragrant, fully double blossoms of English Rose 'Wisley 2008' agreeably combine their pure soft pink rosettes with one of the most popular asters today

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A Fabulous Trio: Rose 'Lady of Shalott', Achillea & Nepeta

Growing roses by themselves would be an open invitation to the pests and diseases that favor roses. Roses are healthier when we provide them with companion plants which help repel destructive bugs and pests while encouraging beneficial insects.

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A Flower Carpet for Your Early Spring Garden

Get your winter landscape to burst into vivid life! Remember to plant a few Persian Violets and Snowdrops in the fall. Low maintenance, they will naturalize well!

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A Fragrant Garden Haven Idea

Dreaming of a resting spot where you could surround yourself with fragrance, color and beauty?

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A Fragrant Garden Retreat Idea

Dreaming of a resting spot where you could surround yourself with fragrance, color and beauty? Why don't you inspire yourself from this vignette and re-create a similar garden haven?

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A Fragrant Plant Combination Idea For Your Early Spring Garden

Get your landscape to burst into vivid life during the chillier months! Remember to plant a few Dwarf Irises (Iris reticulata) and Snowdrops (Galanthus) in the fall.

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A Fragrant Summer Border with Roses, Lavender, Pinks and Sea Holly

Colorful blossoms and delightful fragrance that will entice the senses! Create this border where you will be able to enjoy its perfume daily: near a doorway, along a path, near your patio or deck!

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A Pretty Flower Carpet for Your Mid-Late Spring Garden

Reigning as supreme ground covers in the mid to late spring garden, Erythronium (Dog Tooth Violet) and Corydalis (Fumewort) intermingle to create a wonderful floral tapestry. Part shade lovers, they are perfect to underplant shrubs and roses or to brighten up woodland gardens. Extremely easy to re-create in no time. You have to try it!

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A Traditional and Fragrant Summer Border Idea

Shrub Roses can be combined effectively with long-blooming perennials. This superb traditional border is a good example .

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A Welcoming Hedge

What a fabulous and distinctive hedge! All plants won the prestigious Award of Garden Merit of the Royal Horticultural Society. Fragrant and easy to grow, they require little maintenance

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Add Sparkles To Your Early Spring Garden

There are few sights which surpass a mixed planting of Cyclamen coum (Persian Violet) on an early spring morning. When combined with the golden-yellow cup-shaped blooms of Eranthis hyemalis (Winter Aconite) and the dainty nodding white blossoms of Galanthus (Snowdrops), they all add sparkles in the winter or early spring garden, when most plants are still dormant, and bring huge amounts of optimism and great joy.

An Exciting Idea For Your Early Spring Garden

Prized for their abundant winter or early spring blooms and attractive foliage, Hellebores (Helleborus) are invaluable additions to the shade garden and provide gardeners with some of the greatest pleasures in winter. But rather than let these charming beauties bloom lonesomely in a bare patch, give them companion plants and layer your plantings for maximum drama.

Landscaping Ideas / Underplanting Roses and Shrubs