I'm trying to figure out how everyone has so many roses in smaller yards. What is the minimum distance between roses does everyone put their roses? I usually leave 3-5 feet between roses.. too much? Not enough?

I leave about 2 feet between mine on the average, but I don't like the look of bare earth or mulch. Sometimes I plant them even closer together. If I have a tree rose, for example, I plant shorter roses right under it, with less than a foot between them and the tree rose.

tree roses here have a wonderful name: annual. :) good on thwe distance... i'll move my new onea closer to each other.

I agree with zuzu that I am not fond of looking at mulch. I would think rose spacing would have a lot to do with both the natural size of the rose and with the resources. Here in AZ, where it is dry I think there is a tendency to space plants further apart than one would do where the soil remains damp.

I would imagine climbing roses get planted at intervals not usually closer than 4 or 5 feet apart. I think at Roseraie de l'Hay the regular spacing for climbers was closer to 8 ft; but the constraints there may have been more architectural than they were agricultural. Minis might easily be placed 12 to 18 inches apart, if the plants are compact as the flowers. Some floribundas remain smallish, and I think two feet apart could be great for them. But others stretch out to five feet across. I like the idea of planting hybrid tea roses in beds closely together, if one can get away with it. But there are monsters like Folklore that might seem crowded at three ft spacing. And if you like to mix other plants with roses, sometimes the spacing can be much more open, too.

Of course, rose collectors (we know who we are...) might plant roses close together simply to enable us to build a more comprehensive collection.

So it all depends on your roses, on your tastes, on your geography, and on your planting plan.

Well, I am going to blow everyone out of the water. I plant my roses (not climbers) 12 to 18 inches apart. Anything with spacing of 2 feet is very far apart for me and there are not many of those.

There are somethings that go along with the way I have my garden set up. I have dug up and given away perfectly good roses that were space hogs and did not want to play nice with their neightbors. Thinking of Austins Golden Celebration and Falstaff for instance. And l prune very heavily each spring. Very heavily. Then I also prune down again after the spring flush but not as much as in the spring. That gives me another strong flush in August. After that I let them be and just cut spent blooms. So they keep blooming until frost. I leave them tall going into winter as I feel it is better for winter hardyness.

I have some HTs, many, many floribudas and also roses that get lumped into the shrub rose catagory. I also do have some that I let get large and are anyway from the main rose beds.

And your method is working beautifully!

Small yards are just my excuse for planting everything close together. I don't just plant roses close together, I do that with everything. I have a pretty much normal sized suburban yard and you would be amazed at how much I have growing here.

I'm a firm believer in cramming, but I always leave room for other plants between my roses, always striving to have a garden with roses in it rather than a rose garden.

This used to be my driveway. Good thing I don't have a car.

That picture is beautiful enough to be a painting. Just a stunning garden. Much better than looking at a car anyway.

I have lots of things around my roses as I have small sections of crammed together roses. But the only things I have between my roses are lily bulbs.

I think both Zuzu and Rita have stunningly beautiful gardens, and would be thrilled to be able to produce the same results!

When I planted roses 2 ft apart they died. In NJ I objected to watering regularly, so sometimes the cause of a rose's demise was dry soil. Here, where the ground is fairly dry, the normal practice is to leave much more space between plants in order to conserve water. I'm afraid I've not completely gotten with the program on that, but at least my larger shrub roses are five to seven feet apart (Falstaff and Abe Darby are stretching out to fill that space quickly). A mixed bed of HTs and floribundas will have spacing closer to three feet. And minis are 18 inches apart. I'm afraid you'll see mulch between them until I figure out some better practice.

I am working on incorporating salvias, sedums, lavender, dianthus, lilies, larkspur, anemonies, and other annuals, perennials, bunch grasses, and bulbs into the beds around and between roses. I'm even trying to see if certain vegetables can look good there. I've planted peas with lilies. And put a bed of garlic in a shady bed where I should not have even planted shade-tolerant roses. But it's still too early to tell if any of this is working. One thing I do know; I would love to be able to do away with having to look at mulch.

All my roses are heavily mulched. In fact just about everything is heavily mulched around here. I use either bagged leaves that people put out by the curb in the fall or bales of straw. Still in the roses, the only times you can actually see the mulch is winter or early in the spring like this. The roses are all heavily prunned down in the spring and you can see the area around them. Once they start to bud up they are too full already to see any ground between them, mulch or no mulch.

If its dry, meaning not much rain, I do have to water my roses. Last year, we had so much rain, I never had to water anything. Still the fact that it is all mulched helps alot with not needing so much water.

Rita, I wish I had learned your method of rose cultivation twelve years ago. I could have crammed a lot more roses into my half acre garden, and gotten better results, too. I really like your practice of using leaves and straw which decompose and feed the soil. I must admit that I never really thought of the idea of using mulch on soil you cannot see. But now I realize it's an inspired thing to do.

Steve, you can always add roses between the roses already there. Prune heavily in the spring so you can see how much space you have and add something new. You could also put on the mulch heavily at that time. I bet if you mulched with straw, it would improve your soil and really help with keeping the moisture.

It doesn't work with all roses. Some are just space hogs and there is northing you can do about that. For instance I used to have Austins GOLDEN CELEBRATION. A Lovely rose but it wants to be big and just will not stay smaller. I replaced it with GOLDEN ZEST a Jackson and Perkins english style rose that is similiar looking but much better behaved.

Ok, living here in Arizona, I break all the rules for planting roses, how far a part. I plant them closely together. About 2 feet from the rose next to them, unless I know I have a rose that will get HUGE as it matures, then I may plant them further apart then that. We are told to plant roses far apart so they get good air circulation, and this will help prevent powdery mildew, and all kinds of other fungi from evading the garden. Ba Humbug. In our extremely dry desert, I think planting them closer together helps keep the roots cooler, hold moisture in better, and makes for a very lovely colorful garden I also jam a lot of annuals, bulbs and perennials at there feet so there is very little room for weeds ot evade. That's my story and I'm sticking to it :)

alan

Rita & Alan,
What a great point of view! If I were to plant as closely as you suggest, my garden would have space for three or four hundred roses, I think. It's timely advice. I made good use of VG's $10.95 sale.

What new roses did you get? Having them on sales makes it even better :-))

My wish list is kinda long. And it keeps changing. I still have to work on minis. Here's some of the highlights.

A few HT's : Lemon Spice (on order), Medallion, Karen Blixen, Marijke Koopman, Double Delight, and Touch of Class. also Mrs Oakley Fisher.

Some floribundas: Sunsprite, Lavaglut, Intrigue, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and Little Darling. Playboy died but might be replaced. Maybe Chinatown. Coral Crown and French Lace are on order.

A few climbers: Aimee Vibert, Blairii II, E Veyrat Hermanos, Eden, and Long John Silver. Spectacular (Dans de Feu), Tausendshcoen, and Ilse Krohn Superior are on order.

Some old roses and shubs: Bouquet Parfait, Old Port, Eyepaint, Jacqueline du Pre, Mrs. John Laing, Cornelia, Yolande de Aragon, and Malton.


Zuzu's posts have convinced me to get Jean Giono and Veldfire (on order).

How close would you plant miniature roses together. I would like to get a "floribundaville" effect with my mini roses. I suspect 12" or less. And lots of fungicide.

It really depends on how big your roses get. If a mini rose at mature age only reaches a foot in diameter, and the one next to it reaches 2 feet in diameter, then yes a foot. But if two roses next to each other max out at one foot each in diameter, you might want to shoot for six inches apart. You need to know how big your mini rose is going to get. I have mini roses that are now 12 feet wide and 15 feet tall. So it's very important to understand the potential size of your mini rose before planting.

Alan

When I space roses based on their advertised size, end up with crowds and gaps. I fill in the gaps and end up swallowing someone up totally. I can't win.