Rose: A Beautiful Addition To Your Landscape

Roses have a new place in today's home landscape, a landscape that is becoming more informal and natural in appearance, a reflection of the lifestyle of today's gardener. To explore the possibilities, it helps to step back from the rose flower for a moment. Now look at the rose as a landscape plant. Measure a free-blooming floribunda such as 'Iceberg' or 'Sarabande' against any popular flowering shrub, including azalea, viburnum, camellia, hydrangea and hibiscus. For length of bloom and abundance of flowers, roses surpass any of these fine plants. Add in the appeal of crisp, clean foliage, cold hardiness, diverse growth habits and great vigor, and it becomes clear that the rose is one of the most versatile landscape plants available.

The beauty of the rose flower is undeniable. People are drawn to the flowers, to see them close-up and to sample their fragrance, whether the flower is on the plant or in the vase. Perhaps this is one reason roses have been underutilized as landscape plants: People have a difficult time standing back and appreciating their landscape value.

However, interest in roses as landscape subjects is growing. Rose breeders have developed varieties that emphasize landscape qualities: handsome form, disease-resistant foliage, long season of bloom and low-maintenance growth characteristics. Meanwhile, a number of time-honored roses such as 'Betty Prior' and 'Sarabande' already possess these qualities. With a new following, they are finding their rightful place in the landscape.

How you choose to use roses in the landscape greatly depends on your personal preferences and gardening style. But there are sound guidelines to help you achieve your goals. It is usually not enough to consider only how roses relate to each other. Successful landscape designers study how all plants interact in terms of color, texture and form. Many plants, including flowering annuals, perennials and shrubs, can be used to highlight the best features of roses, making their display all the more dramatic. Roses can work equally well in a support role, emphasizing the unique qualities of landscape plants nearby. For example, the long bloom period and white flowers of 'Iceberg' make an excellent background for flowering perennials.

One of the most important factors in using roses successfully is selecting flower colors carefully. There is beauty in simplicity, and one of the most effective uses of landscape roses involves combining several plants of a single hue. When roses are in full bloom, they are quite dramatic and demand attention. If too many colors are mixed together, the effect can overpower a garden. Still, a creative blend of rose varieties similar in flower color (as well as plant form), such as several shades of pink, can be stunning.

As you make your color choices, consider how colors can vary according to the surroundings and location of your garden. Walls, buildings, garden structures, background plants and even the sky absorb or reflect color. This affects the look of the garden. For example, light-colored flowers planted against a white wall lose much of their impact. Against a dark brick wall, however, the same flowers would capture and hold the viewer's attention.

The quality and degree of light vary according to where you live. Pastel and light-colored flowers tend to have the greatest impact in the cool, even light of the coastal garden. In the sun-drenched desert, these colors lose their intensity. The bright, warm-colored sunlight is better suited to rich reds, oranges, purples, magentas and yellows. And in woodsy areas of the South, Midwest and East, light yellows, pinks and whites appear softer and more at home in the filtered light of canopy trees.

For a garden that evokes calmness, select and mass plants with complementary foliage colors and textures and similar flower colors. An example of this would be “Bonica” roses with pink-flowering geraniums. Place plants in natural-shaped drifts rather than a smattering of dribs and drabs. The idea is to blend colors as well as forms and textures together. This works especially well in small gardens, where simple plant combinations visually expand the garden space.

For a dynamic effect, create eye-catching combinations with color opposites. A good example is yellow roses planted with blue-violet salvia. If in doubt about certain color combinations, test them on a small scale by planting roses in containers, possibly using one rose variety for each container. This way you can see how colors combine with other flowering plants before putting roses in the ground.

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