As I grow older, I find it takes me much longer to maintain my garden the way it should be maintained. I never liked the look of formal gardens or even of mulch in flower beds. I always preferred to pack my plants together so that there was no bare ground showing between plants.
Evidently, the look I preferred for my garden bothered an overzealous gardener who worked for me occasionally when I needed someone to climb up a ladder or wield a chainsaw or do other things I hope never to do again. When I was out one day, he took it upon himself to "weed" my garden. He removed all of the alyssum, violets, geraniums, sedum, and various other short plants that had been growing between my taller plants. When I came home and saw all of the bare ground, I was horrified, but he insisted that the other plants were weeds that had been "choking" the roses.
I then compounded the problem myself by removing many shrubs and large perennials from my garden because I just never had enough time and energy to deadhead and prune all of them, and because they were overwhelming some of the shorter roses.
All of the resulting bare spots quickly filled up with grassy weeds. The weeding takes much longer than the pruning and deadheading ever did, so now I want to restore the flower beds to their previous state, filling the bare spaces with plants that will keep the weed seeds from growing. What are some good companion plants that will fill the spaces (without "choking" the roses
)?
