I read that ornamental onions were good companions for roses (plus they repel voles), so my wife and I picked one out to plant next to the climbing rose. I decided to try to split it so that it was on both sides of the rose (wife gave me ok to try it ) . I had never tried splitting plants, and only heard about it in passing. I had no idea how to go about it properly and didn't have the patience to study it, so I just winged it. The plant looked like it had a natural place to split it in the middle, and that's what I did with the help of a box knife I had handy. The bloom that was on it was on one half and I planted that first. Then as I went to plant the other half, I accidentally dropped it. The plant was just barely hanging on to the root ball, so I carefully planted it and hoped for the best.

It grew weak at first, then it picked up. Yesterday I noticed it had a bud on it, how cool is that?

Very nice! You did a great job.

wildflowers said:Very nice! You did a great job.

Way to go!

Vole protection? I'm in. Last winter the voles chewed the roots off of my Nanidina hedge. I was so up set, I was only able to salvage 5 of 10 and 1 left in the ground. I wonder if onions or alliums would be as effective as cages. What's to stop them from coming up and over the cages? I started planting onions around my wife's roses and they did great the first year, by the second year she was onboard with the idea, and ordered more ornamental alliums.

Eric4home said:Vole protection? I'm in. Last winter the voles chewed the roots off of my Nanidina hedge. I was so up set, I was only able to salvage 5 of 10 and 1 left in the ground. I wonder if onions or alliums would be as effective as cages. What's to stop them from coming up and over the cages? I started planting onions around my wife's roses and they did great the first year, by the second year she was onboard with the idea, and ordered more ornamental alliums.

Actually, voles don't seem to bother anything in the containers (in my case, cedar planters), but the onion was good for the rose in other ways too. Rosemary is also a deterrent. I can't point to any one source for controlling voles, but I recently read they like concrete slabs, the feel safe and secure under them. We have a small one at the bottom of the steps of our unused deck. When I pulled the weeds away from the slab, I noticed small openings along the side. Unfortunately I can't pull up that slab, but I can keep the weeds away so that they are exposed. Here's a few links I googled:

http://homeguides.sfgate.com/p...

http://thesagebutterfly.blogsp...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Took these pics today. The rose is looking it's healthiest since I've had it. Poor thing has had a tough time. I originally had it in the ground, but a vole kept chewing on it's roots, so I moved it to the cedar planter. I'm not sure if it's health is due to the fact that I started fertilizing it after I recently found out that potting soil has no nutrients in it, or because of the onion. Onion is doing good too. Compare the rose with a picture I took about 7 weeks ago.

Rose & companion Ornamental Onion 7-29-16


Backside



Onion looks like it could be split again, but I'm going to leave it for now.


Rose 6-8-16