Perfect Perennial Partners for Roses: Companion Planting for Health and Beauty

Roses are party animals. When surrounded by agreeable companions, they take on a special glow they don't exhibit when grown alone.

Good rose companions need more than visual compatibility. They must tolerate the roses' regular irrigation and feeding without competing for them. That rules out summer-dormant plants like California ceanothus, water-siphoners like willows, and aggressive spreaders like mint or red valerian (Centranthus ruber). Also avoid plants that attract diseases you're trying to keep off roses.

Two excellent companions are campanula and Santa Barbara daisy. Other perfect perennials: asters, bearded irises, catmint (Nepeta faassenii), delphiniums, feverfew (Chrysanthemum parthenium), foxglove (Digitalis), garden penstemon (P. gloxinioides), nicotiana, phlox, scabiosa, Shasta daisy, true geraniums, verbena, and yarrow (Achillea).

Other Pretty Partnerships

• A trio of white roses—'Iceberg', 'Class Act', 'Sally Holmes'—with gray-leafed snow-in-summer and white-flowered veronica and nicotiana.
• A simple hedge of pink 'Bonica' roses edged with baby-blue 'Peter Pan' agapanthus.
• Apricot-cinnamon-gold 'Singin' in the Rain' with a skirt of pastel yarrow and sunny yellow 'Little Maid' kniphofia spikes.
• 'Lavender Pinocchio' and 'Blueberry Hill' backed with bronze fennel or purple smokebush (Cotinus coggygria) and fronted with a wide ruffle of Geranium himalayense 'Baby Blue'.