Best English Roses for Mixed Borders

Companion Plants for Roses

• Roses do not like too much competition and it is recommended to surround them with plants that are not too aggressive or invasive as they might overpower your roses.
• Underplant your shrub roses with a succession of flowers to reinforce the beauty of their romantic blooms and extend the flowering season of your mixed border. Start with low-growing spring bulbs such as snowdrops, crocus, grape hyacinths, scillas, anemones and narcissi. They will provide color to your rose borders at a time when your roses are not at their best. 
• There is a wide range of companion plants that will bring out their best qualities and share their space with a serene balance. Among the favorite rose companion plants are hardy geraniums, nepeta, salvias, penstemons, campanulas, and lavender, whose exquisite flower heads contrast beautifully with the billowing pink, red, yellow or white roses. Don’t forget to consider wallflowers which combine beautifully with roses and create a great foil over a long-lasting blooming season. 
• Try bearded irises whose spiky foliage adds texture while their magnificent blossoms make your roses stand out. 
• Alliums are plants of exquisite beauty that deserve a place in rose borders. Reliable, they come back year after year, are easy to grow and undemanding and many outstanding varieties, such as Allium ‘Globemaster’, Allium hollandicum ‘Purple Sensation’ or Allium cristophii harmonize perfectly with early blooming roses. They also ward off aphids and prevent black spot. Chives are easy to grow and look very charming among shrub roses. 
• Peonies and roses create another spectacular combination. Beloved for their abundant blooms, the beauty of their exquisite flowers, coupled with their delightful fragrance and their bold season-changing foliage, peony flowers add a dazzling splash of color in the landscape. Virtually carefree once established, they live for generations, are deer proof and produce some of the best cut flowers.
• If you are growing tall shrub roses, combine them with hollyhocks and foxgloves which will match them in height and add remarkable grace to the border.
• Perennial oriental poppies are also brilliant companion plants when interplanted with English roses
• Lady’s mantle and coral bells also make soft ground covers around the bases of roses, their mounds of scalloped-edged foliage adding texture and interest to that part of the border.
• Add some late-blooming asters in shades of blue or lavender, or chrysanthemums in shades of pink, lavender or pale yellow.