Regional Growing Guide: Mid-Atlantic

Dreamy Rose Companions

While you are dreaming of the roses you'll be planting this spring, picture companion plants that will complement your roses and add year-round interest.

Traditional Blue
In English style gardens, there's always a nice blue flower along with the roses. If delphiniums grow well for you then add those, or perhaps the somewhat easier-to-grow annual larkspur. The perennial salvias Blue Hill and Blue Queen are attractive, as are the perennial geraniums Johnson's Blue and Brookside; of course blue-flowered clematis vines are always perfection. So too the Siberian irises.

Silver
For a softer floating cloud effect try the nepetas, soft purplish blue tones in a wash of floppy, billowy, blue-silver foliage. Silver foliage is a frequent accompaniment to roses, so think too of the lavenders (Munstead and Hidcote tend to be among the hardier forms) and definitely dianthus. Many dianthus (think pinks and carnations) scent the garden with spicy tones playing against the sweetness of the roses. Close your eyes and breathe it in.

Annuals and Edges
Next might be annuals for steady color all season. Petunias are dependable, so is the salvia Victoria Blue. Violas (look for heat-tolerant types) are charming peeking out from beneath roses. Imagine a rectangular bed edged in Purple Ruffles basil or dwarf purple barberry to create a ruby toned jewel box setting for your roses. Or how about an understated edging of clipped boxwoods? With an underplanting of annual moss roses (portulaca) for a clever rose echo. Or a perfumed low carpet of sweet alyssum, simplicity itself.

The Prairie and Beyond
To enhance a prairie-style garden, surround landscape roses with purple coneflowers, late daylilies, and a mixed collection of bold annual sunflowers. In the shrub border, intersperse the roses with the small, pink-flowered Japanese spireas, some caryopteris shrubs, some exuberant dwarf butterfly bushes, and maybe a diminutive form of sweetshrub -- the sweetly fragrant clethra. Oh, and don't forget the mums and dahlias for fall!

Fragrant Roses

Exploring Scents
The seven basic scents most often found in hybrid tea roses are apple, clover, lemon, nasturtium, orris, rose, and violet. Others are anise, bay, fern, geranium, honey, hyacinth, lily-of-the-valley, linseed oil, marigold, moss, orange, parsley, peppers, quince, raspberry, and wine.

In general, the most highly scented roses are the ones that are darker in color, have more petals to the flower, or have thick, velvety petals. Reds and pinks tend to smell "like a rose;" whites and yellows smell like lemon, orris, nasturtium, and violet; oranges smell like clover, fruit, orris, nasturtium, and violet.

Fragrance is strongest early on warm, sunny days when the soil is moist. 'Sutter's Gold' is unusual in that it is wonderfully fragrant even on cool, cloudy days'.

Some top choices for fragrance include 'Double Delight', 'Garden Party', 'Fourth of July', 'Honey Perfume', 'Julia Child',  'Mister Lincoln', 'Moondance', 'Rainbow Knock-Out', 'Strike It Rich', and 'SunSprinkles'.

Most roses will last for at least four days when cut when in bud and put in vases of 72-degree water. Recut back about 1/4 inch every two days, and add new water Red, pink, and orange roses with many petals generally last the longest.
Rose Care

When transplanting roses, add humus and potash, but be spare with nitrogen fertilizers, as these hasten new foliage which may be damaged by late frosts. Prune established roses even if they have not lost all their leaves. Remove crowded or crossed branches, and open the center of the plant for good light exposure and airflow. Prune branches at a 45-degree angle just above a bud that faces outward or toward a side that needs filling in. Remove any leaves that have dead or diseased portions, and destroy (don't compost) them. Climbers and old-fashioned roses with a single bloom cycle in the spring should be pruned following that bloom.