Companion planting run amok

One of the knocks against rose gardening is the unappealing look of ‘soldier’ rows of bushes naked from the knees (or waist) down. I deliberately did not design my garden in rows. For one thing I didn’t have the room, and for another I was afraid my front yard would look stupid. So I wound up with circles and curves. My biggest frustration as a new gardener was all the empty space around the tiny new roses and later the unleafy state of my young bushes. So I made the decision to add companion plants in an effort to reduce the pressure to perform on the roses and on me. I figured with other stuff to look at my ugly roses wouldn’t be so noticeable. So my garden became cottage-y.

My learning curve was pretty steep. Every plant was an experiment. I learned that very few plants when placed in a watered, amended Florida garden do not become gargantuan. Plant after plant was eliminated due to their bulk in my tiny garden and the fact that the roses were filling the empty space on their own. So my cache of companions were few: Salvia farinacea, daylilies, Purple Coneflower, Dianthus chinensis, and this year dahlias. Admittedly, there are some that I haven't tried, but I got gun-shy. There are a few that reseed, returning in winter or early, early spring like nigella ‘Love in a Mist’ and larkspur, but they’re done in by the heat eventually and are gone by June.

Last year I went nuts with Purple Coneflower seeds, and when the seedlings sprouted I was so covetous of them that I barely thinned them, not realizing these babies would grow into beasts 15” in diameter (and more) with a root system even broader and reaching for China. The lovely non-rhizome-spreading Salvia farinacea is a reseeder as well but in the current season. Though easily thinned, it can fill a bed if left alone. The thrill of spring became the wonderment of mid-summer and the terror of fall.

Now, the cottage gardener would love this bed, but upon hearing that there's a 4-1/2 by 6 foot rose bush in there the rose gardener would have heart failure.

When I was taking these 'before' shots back in mid-October after my summer hiatus, I was stunned by the density of the companion plants. The liriope had become huge; the salvia with glorious abandon had spread everywhere even overtaking the Purple Coneflower plants. By the way there are three rose bushes in there.

This is 'White Maman Cochet' no doubt struggling to breathe.

The pulling began shyly at first. The sweet purple flower stalks were so lovely.

Then reality hit home. If there's no light, there's no life, and I found lots of deadwood at the bottom of WMC. The short greenery is weeds. Apparently, they don't need light. The larger leaves on the right are young Purple Coneflower plants, raring to go.

Believe it or not 'Madame Antoine Rebe' is actually blooming under that pile of companions - even the 'Aaron' caladiums gave up the fight.

Here's the opposite angle.

'Souvenir de St. Anne's' was originally planted too close to 'White Maman Cochet' which was bad enough, but then the daylily grew and the coneflowers grew and she is fighting for her space.

My attitude finally became 'take no prisoners', and I think WMC is happier already.

She has a few blooms and buds and a very strong will.

There are a few salvias in the middle that I didn't have the heart to pull. Maybe I'll be able to tuck them in somewhere. Kept under control they are my preferred in-the-ground companion now.

I added more space to the back of the bed, meaning I pulled up the weed cloth, broke up the compacted sand, threw in some Sphagnum peat moss, bagged soil, Milorganite and alfalfa and trusted that liriope isn't as nutritionally demanding as roses) and moved three of the 'Super Blue' liriope along the new back line.

I stuck coneflowers and salvias in between the liriope. I hate to throw away plants.

Don't mean to cause eye strain, but I just had to include this near-dark last shot of the day. The Program setting on the camera made light where there was no light, but the camera just could not focus on what it couldn't see. These are the coneflower plants I salvaged. I think there are six. Several small ones were thrown away. Oh, the pain. My plan for next season is to keep them in pots and scatter them throughout the garden. Requiring a shovel and several deep cuts around the rootball, these are impossible to pull by hand. They have grand root systems. Mother Nature can be very proud. Of course, there will also be the seeds from this year that will be sprouting from now on. Must stay on top of those.

'White Maman Cochet' does have some new growth after last month's feeding but nowhere near what she would have had with more light and less root competition. Poor thing.

Here is 'Madame Antoine Rebe'. She has struggled since her move to this bed in early spring but looks amazingly well considering her environment for the last few months. Unfortunately, she's one-third the size she was back in February.

David Austin's 'Tradescant' will be planted in here soon, and 'Souvenir de St. Anne's' will be moved over.

Overplanting with companions had its negative effects elsewhere in the garden. I believe these are six - no, seven - Penta plants put in on June 28th for fill in the 'Le Vesuve' center bed. My poor 'Le Vesuve' has had a terrible year of dieback to the extent that recently I was giving strong consideration to replacing him with 'Belinda's Dream'.

Gone now are the Pentas. The Purple Coneflowers would have been, too, if I had had my shovel.

This photo says a thousand words to me. Look how far the bush extends past the right edge (rear) of the bed, and look how far away from the front edge he grew - or rather didn't grow. He did try to put on new growth, but most of it died. Those pentas were just sucking up the nutrients and pushing back the rose's toes

Here's a shot from the other side. You can see there's not much bush on the right side, and look at that huge clump of coneflowers. Not thinning seedlings to one individual is a dereliction of a Florida gardener's duty. Companions are lovely, but roses come first.

This photo from directly behind and back near the house shows that 'Le Vesuve' is a very one-sided bush. The left side even extends beyond the photo frame. How sad for him, but at least he survived. Roses really are tough.

And this June 28th photo says it all! 'Le Vesuve' was a balanced bush back then with many more canes than today. However, his decline had already started on the left side due to the coneflower plants, I'm sure. I only added to his problems with the addition of the pentas. Apparently, the salvia on the right is a less intrusive plant and less demanding of nutrients than the coneflowers and the pentas which grew to almost three feet tall. I'll be putting daylilies back along the edges.

I will be much more conservative about my companion planting in the future. Perhaps in other regions/climates where these perennials are not so robust and the soil is richer they would not pose the same threat to roses as they have in my garden. Naturally, even in Florida a larger garden would be effected less, assuming the gardener didn't get greedy (who me?) and plant too far under the roses' canopy. The daylilies do not seem to have this deleterius effect, thankfully. Perhaps I can use the pentas in pots, too, maybe even partially sinking them in the soil - or not. And maybe the restrictions of the pot will limit their size. At any rate this year has been another learning season filled with as much fretting as the previous ones - different year, different problems. I am grateful to the true Master Gardener for these opportunities to learn, and I should pray to become a better student.

Yesterday

Since the garden is pretty much between flushes, almost on the verge of the next flush, there isn’t a lot of blooming, but there are signs, and besides, a garden is more than flowers. A flowerless time in the garden is an opportunity for seeing structure and texture and for eyeballing plant size and willingness to play nice with neighbors. I had walked the garden on Saturday, taking 174 shots, a ton even for me, but yesterday #1 Dear Son arrived with his Canon EOS DSLR camera to let me take it for a “test drive”. With actual glee I walked around again and took 195 more. What a fun camera! What great photographs it produces! (I’ve been on Ebay a lot since then looking for a bargain.) Yesterday also produced a fix for the problem of super bright sunlight blowing out my whites and reds. DS suggested using a polarization filter on the lens, so I got one from DH (seems like he has one of everything), and it worked!! Finally, an answer to glare and distorted colors.

The photos in this post were taken with DS’s camera before I knew about the polarization filter, so I had to adjust the exposure manually – not completely successfully - after the fact with Windows Live Photo. I was so impressed with the detail I could see in them. Not only are leaves sharply defined from twenty and even thirty feet away, but even the veins in the leaves are clearly visible as well. So amazing!

Third-year clematis 'Venosa Violacea' is going great guns, climbing to the top of the 8-ft. arbor in a month and blooming like never before.

Here are the new babies. Left to right: 'Gruss an Teplitz', 'Rosette Delizy' and 'Bermuda's Anna Olivier'. I moved RD & BAO up to 3-gallon pots last Friday. I hope they liked the rain this evening. I did. How convenient that I still had the old markers with their names on them.

'Frilly Bliss'

This is the marker for the daylily just below, but I couldn't resist including this sharp photo. A good name for a garden, too, don't you think?

'Passion District' was definitely a bit redder in her second bloom. This is one I really, really wanted since I started growing daylilies. I don't think I'm going to be disappointed.

What an incredibly deep wine color 'Marietta Dreamer' is. Interestingly, she starts out fairly light and gets very dark, apparently from the sun.

Also in her third year clematis 'Princess Diana' is marvelous. My neighbor just loves her.

'Bowbells', a David Austin rose, sits in the shade all day, awaiting the tree trimmers, but she still manages to put out some very delectable blooms. How's this for pretty?

As the sign says, this is 'Softee'. Last week she was merely green with hardly any flower buds that I noticed, and here she is blooming away. I don't know what she's like in the ground, but she's great in a pot.

Here is 'White Pet'. The camera does a great job showing detail in these white flowers which can sometimes lose definition in the bright sun. It sort of pops, doesn't it?

'Le Vesuve' is just starting to put on buds for the next flush, but I found this lone flower low down on the bush. I just added the Salvia farinacea (by the way, they're 77 cents at Lowe's - get some!!) to this bed a few weeks ago. I had six or seven 4" pots that had survived since February (looking a little rough) that I plopped in wherever there was a space. And today I bought three more. Can't have too much of this 'Victoria Blue' salvia.

Today 'Clotilde Soupert' has even more open flowers. It occurred to me today that 'Iceberg' may hate my garden, but Clotilde loves it! Grow what loves your garden!!!

I don't know what to say about 'Duquesa' except that she's scaring me. It feels like she's grown a foot in every direction in a week, probably more. She used to be quite lopsided, this being only her second spring. This side of her was decidedly empty a few short weeks ago, but not now. She has been adding canes everywhere, and now she's starting to bloom. In a few days she may be quite a sight. She's got to be 7' across and starting to bully her neighbors.

This is the absolute best photo I have ever been able to get of 'Bowbells'. That's why you haven't seen her. She's in the shade, and big green blobs don't photograph well. She's more than six feet tall. Gotta get that tree trimmer!! She needs just a bit more sun. 'Etoile de Mai' sits diminutively to the left.

Gorgeous 'Clotilde Soupert' has also put on some bulk in the last week with the new growth that comes with her flush. She's 6' across, and the 'Joan Senior' daylily (left of the Salvia) is about buried, as I feared she would be. It's incredible how the barren March garden is suddenly filled to overflowing in May. Over-planting in spring can be a trap to the Florida gardener, at least to the ones who grow OGRs. Clotilde went from a 3x3 pruned skeleton to this in two months. I just love her!!

'Pearl Harbor'

Here's the backside of 'Pinkie, Climbing'. She really has put on a show for more than a month.

This is the view along the driveway. You can get your bearings with the rain gauge. In the foreground in 'Clotilde Soupert', then 'Victoria Blue', a bit of 'Peach Drift' down low, 'Madame Abel Chatenay' almost bereft of blooms, and the tall dahlia 'Lucca Johanna' who by the way is not minding the heat and all day sun (yes, it's hot here). I've never grown dahlias before. One plant can be a whole garden's worth of flowers.

That's scary 'Duquesa' on the left, starting to encroach on the sidewalk. She's a whopper! My other 'Clotilde Soupert' is to her right with a 'Red Ruffle' azalea in between and behind the azalea is a whole crop of Purple Coneflowers that I seeded and transplanted into a big empty space. Ha! Those green hulks are about to be out-hulked. 'Duquesa' and 'Clotilde Soupert' are determined to join hands, I think. The front door is to the right up the sidewalk..

Imagine my utter surprise yesterday when I wheeled around to see this duo alongside the garage wall. That's 'Paint The Town Red' daylily and clematis 'Henryi', heading for the roof, I hope. Onward and upward...and outward!

The reaching 'Princess Diana' is casting her vines upon SDLM and Madame Lombard, but she is a gentle thing, easily tamed and guided. I don't think the roses mind.

Nigella damascena - I can never tell if those bulbous things are the pre-bloom buds or the post-bloom seed pods. I'm guessing seed pods. Coreopsis confused me this way, too, but I've figured that one out. I don't know nigella's habit yet.

Front and center is 'Madame Lombard', a young Tea rose but getting bigger and buried in the lacy foliage of the nigellas. I'm kind of thinking she's not being harmed by them, and the heat will soon enough take its toll on the annual flower. I just deadheaded 'Madame Lombard' the other evening, but she does have one flower to the right of all the nigella in a bloom cluster on a new cane in there somewhere.

The lovely 'Madame Lombard'.

I "filled" the vacancy created by the leaving of 'Bermuda's Anna Olivier' with 'Maggie' - a wee, tiny baby 'Maggie'. Until she's quite a bit bigger I'll have to live with a hole in the garden.

One day 'Maggie' will be a big buxom lady but she ain't yet, even though she's way bigger than she was.

Here's another view of the hole. I guess I really do have to haircut that big Liriope 'Evergreen Giant'. Itt's still freeze-ugly. Oh, the back pain!

Not blooming: 'Enchantress' on the fence at left, 'Clotilde Soupert, Climbing' on the front porch, and 'Le Vesuve' in the center. Definitely blooming: 'Pinkie, Climbing' by the garage!

My garden sentries are, of course, Salvia farinacea. The left one was one of the straggling survivors planted a few weeks ago. The right one is a transplant that was moved out of the way of 'Mme Abel Chatenay' and sat ON the ground for a couple of months awaiting my decision. Great plants.

'Red Cascade' is blooming again by the mailbox.

FYI, nothing has ever survived let alone thrived where those salvias are.

Believe it or not, I've never taken a shot of this view before. 'White Pet' is in the pot. Baby daylily bed in the foreground. 'Byzantine Enperor' daylily and the dahlia I mentioned, long lasting flowers and still more buds coming. I deadheaded her and 'Madame Abel Chatenay' on the right yesterday.  And gee, there should be a grand reward for anyone who sat through this entire post which. Whew! Glad you stayed.