Home » Misc » Rose garden plans

Rose garden plans


Rose Garden Ideas - How to Design with Roses

Create a beautiful rose garden for your front or back yard, small or large garden, and learn what to plant with roses By Janet Loughrey, Garden Writer & Photographer

At Last® rose. Photo by: Proven Winners

Other Popular Rose Topics:

As one of the world’s most beloved garden plants, roses deserve a prominent spot in the landscape. While these long-lived shrubs have a reputation of being somewhat fussy, newer cultivars bred for disease-resistance and vigor have made growing roses easy for even novice gardeners.

A rose garden can be as simple as a single rose specimen interspersed with a few other plants. It can be as elaborate as a formal landscape embellished with hardscaping, arbors, seating, and statuary. Even smaller spaces can accommodate roses in containers, raised beds, or narrow side yards. Here are the basics of rose garden design, along with some ideas to get you started.

On this page: Planning | Different Spaces | Landscaping Tips | What to Plant With Roses | Design Ideas | More Rose Gardens | Related Reading

On this page:

PLANNING A ROSE GARDEN

Choose your site:

Make sure the site gets at least 6-8 hours of sun a day and has good air circulation to help prevent disease.

Make a plan:

Choose a style:

Decide what kind of rose garden you want. Do you want a clean formal look with structured hardscape, or a more natural appearance with other plants mixed in? Pick a style that will harmonize with your home’s exterior.

Pick a color scheme:

Select colors that you enjoy and that will also help unify the home with the landscape.

Prepare the soil:

Roses like rich, well-draining soil with a slightly acidic pH between 6.0-7.0. Amend the soil with compost or other organic matter. For containers, use a high quality all-purpose potting soil and make sure pots have adequate drainage holes.

Plant selection:

Choose roses that are easy-care and hardy in your region. Select varieties for traits including size, shape, flower color, and form, fragrance and repeat or continual bloom. Many newer varieties such as Oso Easy Roses are bred for disease-resistance, vigor, and long bloom time. Some older types, particularly hybrid teas, can be higher maintenance and more disease-prone.

CREATE A ROSE GARDEN IN DIFFERENT TYPES OF SPACES

Plant fragrant rose varieties near a deck or patio to enjoy their fragrance up close. Gardener: Diana Gough. Designer: Phil Thornburg. Photo by: Janet Loughrey.

Large rose garden:

Small rose garden:

Front yard rose garden:

Backyard rose garden:

ROSE GARDEN LANDSCAPING TIPS

Create a grand entrance to your home with a rose-covered arbor. Gardener: Mary DeNoyer. Photo by: Janet Loughrey.

Grow vertically:

Include climbing roses to maximize your space. Train other vining plants such as clematis to grow up through shrub or climbing roses to create exciting flower combinations.

Grow horizontally:

Train climbers along a fence to define garden rooms or to soften an unsightly chain link fence.

Plant in containers:

Many roses can be successfully grown in containers, a good solution for small spaces, apartment balconies, patios, and decks. Containers should be at least 15 to 20 inches in diameter and 18 to 24 inches deep. Half whiskey barrels work well. Miniature roses can be grown in smaller pots or hanging baskets. (See more on growing roses in pots.)

Cover a slope:

Mass groundcover varieties such as Flower Carpet® or Drift® roses along a slope for low-maintenance erosion control.

Plant in drifts:

For greater impact, plant in groups of 3-5 specimens of the same variety.

Plant a hedge:

Plant a row of taller shrub roses to create privacy from the street. A row of shorter groundcover roses can be planted along a foundation, in a curbside strip, or used to define garden areas.

Make an entrance:

Create a grand entrance to your home with an inviting entryway complete with a rose arbor and adjacent plantings to soften the landscape.

Create a transition:

Use a rose-covered arbor in a side yard to define the transition between front and back yards.

Use as a background planting:

Place climbers along a tall wooden fence to soften the backdrop and break up the expanse of wood.

Foundation planting:

Combine landscape roses with other shrubs that bloom at different times along the front of your home for a season-long display of color.

Mixed border:

Use low-growing ground cover roses near the front of a mixed border or taller semi-climbers in back to establish height and layers.

WHAT TO PLANT WITH ROSES

A curbside planting of roses underplanted with perennial geraniums offers screening and privacy. Garden and photo by: Janet Loughrey.

A rose garden can be greatly enhanced by incorporating other plants as part of the overall design. Roses go well with a wide variety of trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals. Choose plants that have the same cultural requirements of full sun, ample water and rich soil.

Also, consider how much maintenance your roses will need:

Flowering companions:

Intersperse plants that flower at different times to extend the bloom season. These can include perennials or annuals such as petunia, verbena, or calibrachoa.

Complement and contrast:

Pair roses with other plants in complementary hues to create drama and contrast. A gold-colored rose such as Oso Easy Lemon Zest® would pair well with Rapido Blue Carpathian bellflower or ‘Violet Profusion’ salvia.

Trees:

Add different heights to a mixed border or formal rose garden with trees. These can include snowbell (Styrax japonicus), fringe tree (Chionanthus virginicus), dogwood (Cornus) and crabapple (Malus).

Shrubs:

Enhance the landscape by providing contrasting color, texture, and structure with shrubs. These can include boxwood, spirea, bluebeard, and daphne.

Groundcovers:

Use groundcovers as a living mulch and weed-suppressing carpet. Good rose companions include perennial geraniums, dead nettle, bugleweed, and lady’s mantle.

Perennials:

Provide contrast with perennials of different size, structure, and color. Good rose companions include alliums, lavender, catmint, salvia, phlox, and speedwell.

Vines:

Climbers can be trained up or alongside rose plants for an extra layer of color. These may include clematis, climbing bleeding heart (Dicentra scandens), morning glory and jasmine.

ROSE GARDEN IDEAS

Plant fragrant rose varieties near a deck or patio to enjoy their fragrance up close. Gardener: Diana Gough. Designer: Phil Thornburg. Photo by: Janet Loughrey.

Combine roses with other plants of different heights for a layered tapestry. Gardener: Jeff Clark. Photo: Janet Loughrey.

A formal rose garden is characterized by distinct lines, clipped hedging and structures such as pergolas and arbors. Gardener and designer: Nancy Cutler. Photo: Janet Loughrey.

A rose-covered gate marks the transition between the front and back yards. Gardener: Mary DeNoyer. Photo: Janet Loughrey.

Train roses vertically to add varying layers to the landscape. Gardeners: Darin Simmons and Matthew Greydanus, Laurel Hedge. Photo: Janet Loughrey.

Train climbing roses along a fence to create an attractive screen for privacy. Gardeners: Danny Hills and Wayne Hughes, Lonesomeville Gardens. Photo: Janet Loughrey.

Roses combine well with many perennials, shrubs, trees, and annuals. Photo: Matthewshutter / Shutterstock.

MORE ROSE GARDENS

My Garden: An Affinity for Roses

In this front garden, perennials such as catmint, delphinium, and hollyhocks mingle with roses.

From Parking Lot to Rose Garden

See this backyard that was transformed into a spectacular rose garden featuring David Austin roses.

Portland's Rose Test Garden

Another public rose garden, features over 10,000 rose plants from 550 species.

RELATED READING

Rose Care: A Beginner's Guide

Cottage Garden Design

How to Grow Climbing Roses

How to Treat Black Spot on Roses

How to Get Rid of Aphids

How to Get Rid of Powdery Mildew

How to Plan a Rose Garden

One of my favorite memories is of walking through an archway of bright blooms at the rose garden in the Butchart Gardens near Victoria, British Columbia.

The scent! The sight! The color! Everything about that experience was magical, and you’d better believe I stopped to smell the flowers. Several times.

Since then, I’ve helped people in my family cultivate rose gardens, and I’m here to help you, too.

We link to vendors to help you find relevant products. If you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission.

If you have a friend with a mature, dazzling garden already, you might be feeling a bit overwhelmed.

How do you start? Do you have to create something as lofty as the archway that I saw at the Butchart Gardens, or the carefully cultivated garden space in your local botanic garden?

In this guide, we’ll answer these questions and help you get started with planning your own sweet-smelling rose garden.

What You’ll Learn

What Qualifies as a Rose Garden?

If you’ve never grown roses before, or want to learn more about this timelessly popular genus of plants, check out our guide to growing roses.

While these flowers are notorious for being hard to care for, they’re really no more difficult to grow than other dazzling perennials like delphiniums, hydrangeas, and peonies.

You can also think of growing them like you’d think of growing other shrubby or sprawling plants in the Rosaceae family, like blackberries or raspberries.

They require similar care – and many cultivars produce edible fruits called “rose hips” that you can harvest and turn into jelly.

There are dozens of heirlooms, hybrids, and cultivars available to choose from. Newer cultivars tend to have better disease resistance than hybrid teas, for example.

Plus, some cultivars shine in small growing spaces like containers. This means just about anyone can grow a garden filled with Rosa plants.

Rose gardens typically feature various types of specimen plants. Sometimes they just include Rosa species, and other times they include other plants, too.

They can have various shapes, styles, and structures that help to feature types with different growing habits – think arbors, geometric or natural shapes and styles, beds planted with shrubs, and so on.

How to Plan a Rose Garden at Home

The sky’s the limit when it comes to what you can do. But developing a plan is crucial to the success of your garden, so let’s get started.

Choose a Location

The first thing to consider is where you want to put your garden. Whether you grow the flowers in containers, raised beds, window boxes, or in-ground beds, there are a few important requirements to note.

They must have:

Keeping the above considerations in mind, think about what type of look you want to achieve. Do you want the plants to climb a trellis or archway?

How tall do you want the roses to grow, and how much do you want them to spread?

Will you place a bench somewhere within the garden so you can sit and relax? How will you access the plants for pruning, watering, and maintenance?

Do you want to mix other plants – such as foxgloves, geraniums, and lavender – in with the roses to help ward off pests and keep things varied, or do you want various types of Rosa plants to be featured on their own?

Are you drawn to a formal, manicured look, or a more informal, natural look? What style of garden will best match the exterior of your house?

Take a look at examples in gardening books, magazines, and other resources that inspire you.

Visit nearby public gardens, and ask that friend with the splendid mature garden to let you come study it and tell you about it. Take notes on her process.

Jot down the ideas that you’d love to incorporate in your own garden in your gardening journal. Even if you have the most rudimentary drawing skills, try sketching out what you want your garden to look like.

The sketch is also a smart place to note the areas in your yard that get six to eight hours of sunlight, and any other details you want to keep in mind as you work.

Prepare Your Chosen Spot

Once you’ve sketched out your plans, you’ll have a rough idea of where your garden will be placed. So let’s talk about size.

Since you’ve already taken a look at other gardens and know what types you want to grow, think about the general size of each type that you’ve seen.

Hybrid teas, floribundas, and small shrubs grow about two to six feet tall and wide.

Grandifloras and large shrubs typically reach six to 10 feet tall and wide. Miniatures only grow to about 15 to 30 inches in height and spread.

Large-flowered climbers spread four to five feet, but they can grow anywhere from eight to 15 feet tall.

Take a look at your budget and your available space, and then decide about how many roses of which general sizes you want to plant. Graph paper can help with this.

It’s important to give the individual plants within your garden adequate space – the maximum spread is a good benchmark for this.

Four large floribundas, for example, would require about 36 square feet of space per plant, and at least 144 square feet total. Four smaller ones with a more compact habit might fit into 16 square feet of space.

Keep the distance to nearby structures like walls and fences in mind as well, for plant health and to maintain proper airflow.

Planting right up against houses, fences, and so on, as well as planting too closely to other types of flora, can block sunlight and cause moisture on the leaves to fail to evaporate quickly, making plants more prone to fungal disease.

Now is also a good time to take a look at the soil in your chosen planting area. Conduct a soil test to assess the nutrients and pH level.

The pH should be between 6.0 and 6.5, and the soil should be rich, well-draining, and loamy. If it’s too compact or clay-like, you may need to add sand and compost to improve the soil.

Amend your soil to modify the pH if needed. Wood ash can help raise the pH, while aluminum sulfate or sulfur can help lower it.

Place any structures you’ve picked out – like an archway or bench – in the area where you’ll be planting.

Create a Maintenance Schedule

Your location is almost ready to go! Before you pick out your plants, though, consider how you will care for them.

Roses like soil that’s moderately moist, and it’s best to avoid watering the flowers and foliage if possible.

Can you set up a drip irrigation system, or use an irrigation hose? Do you have another way to consistently water the shrub without wetting the leaves and flowers?

What about a rain gauge to keep an eye on how much precipitation your plants get from Mother Earth?

AcuRite Rain Gauge

 A rain gauge like this one from AcuRite, available at the Home Depot, can help you avoid overwatering your plants.

Get several bags of organic mulch ready, too. Roses prefer to have a two- to three-inch layer of mulch in place over the root surface area of each plant. This helps to retain moisture and keep weeds out.

Neptune’s Harvest Fertilizer

When you see new growth on your newly planted shrubs, you should plan to apply a liquid fish and seaweed fertilizer, like this one from Neptune’s Harvest, available from Terrain.

You’ll also want to plan to prune every fall or spring – set reminders in your phone so you don’t forget this important step. See our guide for the best rose pruning tips for more info.

Write out your maintenance schedule in your gardening journal and add it to your phone’s reminders system. This will help you to keep your garden healthy once it’s planted.

Now you’re just about ready to purchase some roses!

Select the Plants

Wait, wait! It’s not time to run to the nearest nursery just yet. But hang tight, because we’re almost there.

First, consider the questions below and write the answers down on the back of your sketch.

1. Consider Your Hardiness and Maintenance Needs

When it comes to hardiness, there are three key points to take into consideration:

The surest way to grow a rose garden that doesn’t thrive is to pick plants that aren’t suited to your growing zone.

Most roses grow easily in USDA Hardiness Zones 6 through 9, with the pickings getting slimmer for those of us who live in Zones 3 through 5, or 10 and up. But we can grow them. We just have to choose the right ones.

Photo by Laura Ojeda Melchor.

Since there are many ways to classify roses, it can be hard to figure out which types tend to be hardy, surviving light and heavy frosts, and which are tender, not able to survive even a light frost.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the hardiness ranges according to market classification, which is commonly used by nurseries.

The following is modified from a chart by Stephen L. Love, a community horticulture specialist with the University of Idaho Extension.

Obviously, there’s a ton of variation even within each classification, but this gives you a good starting point. If you live in Zone 3, for example, you can probably cross tea roses and grandifloras off your list.

But new, cold hardy cultivars are being developed all the time.

In our guide to hardy roses, we introduce 13 of the toughest blooms, chosen for their shade tolerance, disease resistance, and cold hardiness. Make sure you take a look at this roundup as you plan which cultivars to select.

We’ve also got a super helpful guide to buying roses with winning tips like getting in touch with your state’s rose society to find high quality varieties that thrive in your area.

When it comes to pest and disease resistance, heirloom and old garden varieties have excellent disease resistance and tend to be cold hardy, too.

True heirlooms – varieties originally selected before 1867 – can be difficult to find, though, and a downside is that many only bloom once in a growing season.

Newer, repeat-blooming series like the Knock Out® varieties are also known for their disease resistance, so it’s entirely possible to find something that suits all your needs.

Even better, Knock Out® varieties are self-cleaning, which means the flowers drop after they’re spent and you don’t have to deadhead to keep them blooming all summer long.

A downside? Self-cleaning varieties are sterile and don’t produce rose hips, so if you’re looking to harvest hips for jam, stay away from self-cleaners.

2. What Are Your Color, Use, and Growth Habit Preferences?

While color, use, and growth habit preferences are important, they’re secondary to hardiness.

So once you’ve got a list of plants that grow well in your area and have the disease resistance and maintenance requirements you prefer squared away, it’s time to think about the fun stuff.

I like to write down all the cultivars I’m considering based on what fits my hardiness zone, and then further narrow those plants down by color, growth habit, and my intended use.

How will you use the flowers in your garden?

If you want to dry the blooms as decoration, or you want long-stemmed varieties to cut and put in vases, you’ll need to choose an appropriate variety.

Or maybe you’d rather not pick the flowers, but instead prefer for them to act as ground cover, or an awe-inspiring trellis climber.

Photo by Laura Ojeda Melchor.

Think about what colors pop against the exterior of your home and any other structures you have in or near your rose garden.

I have a red house, so I tend to love a combination of yellows and pinks. My in-laws in California have a sage-green home exterior against which they’ve planted a garden of splendid white blooms.

When it comes to growth habits, consider the space you’ve allotted. Will you need climbers? Ground covers? Bushes?

See our comprehensive guide to rose growth habits for a breakdown of these to further narrow down your list of plants to buy for your garden.

Once you’ve got your list finalized, it’s time to go shopping!

Planting: Saving the Best Step for Last

Now that you’ve done the hard work of planning and purchasing plants, it’s time to start planting.

This is the best part, in my opinion. There’s nothing like the feeling of working outside all day, and then stepping back at the end of the day and gazing at your newly planted garden.

Once you’re done, we’d love to see pictures. Please share them in the comments section below! You can also send us your questions throughout the planning process. We’re happy to help.

For more tips to help you care for your beloved rose blossoms, don’t miss these guides:

what needs to be done in the garden and on the beds

It seems that imposing snowdrifts have melted quite recently, and May is already on the nose, the last spring month, in which planting work must be hastily completed in the south, and seedlings must be prepared for planting in the north in the open ground, perform a number of other important activities. The gardener's gardener's calendar for May will help you remember to do important work at your summer cottage, and also orient you on what days, what is preferable to do. Of course, each gardener has his own plans, they can be radically different, but there are some general works that it is desirable to complete in the last month of spring. If you had work planned for April, but it was not possible to complete them on time, you should start with them.


Cleaning the garden, removing shelters, lawn

A gardener’s plan for May may include many different tasks, but first you should finish removing shelters from wintering crops (grapes, roses, large-leaved hydrangea), because the active sun will heat up covering layers and a significant increase in temperature inside the structure. Lapnik, wood chips, sawdust must be disposed of after removal, or better, burned to destroy wintering pests.

Last year's leaves, branches broken in winter, as well as remnants of insulating material are removed from paths and near-trunk circles.

If planting work has not yet been carried out in the greenhouse, it is recommended to clean and disinfect the interior. If necessary, new soil, sand and humus are brought into greenhouses and greenhouses.

"Comb" the lawn with a rake, burn old leaves and dead grass. Feed lawn grass with complex fertilizers for the spring season.

Preparation of beds and planting pits

Summer cottage work in May may include preparing new garden beds and planting pits for new fruit or ornamental trees. These works are best done in the fall, but sometimes there are circumstances when the gardener is deprived of the opportunity to prepare the seats in time, so in early May it is quite possible to start planning the garden and laying out the garden, especially in the northern regions where the snow has just melted.

Planting trees and shrubs too close over time will cause the root system of a stronger seedling to absorb maximum nutrients, and a nearby tree will experience a nutrient deficiency. In addition, the threat of infection with pathogenic fungi will increase significantly when tree branches close into a common tent, air exchange and lighting inside the crowns will deteriorate.

One should also keep in mind the location of garden trees away from neighboring fences and capital buildings.

A drainage pit is built on each garden plot, so when planting shrubs it is better to retreat from the boundaries of this structure at least 1 m, when planting trees - from 2 m or more - it depends on the size of an adult tree.

When digging holes for fruit trees, remember the necessary distances that are left between plants. Experienced gardeners plant certain types of trees near cesspools that are capable of absorbing large amounts of moisture from the soil per day:

If the gardener's plan for May includes planting trees, remember that enough free space is immediately left between seedlings so that tree crowns do not interfere with the growth of neighbors .

iMac:

iMac 21.5" LED-backlit 1080P:

1920x1080

iMac 21.
5" Retina 4K:

4096x2304

iMac 27" Retina 5K:

5120x2880

MacBook:

MacBook Air 11.6":

1366x768

MacBook Air 13", MacBook Pro 15.4":

1440x900

MacBook Pro 13.3":

1280x800

MacBook Pro 15.4" Retina:

2880x1800

MacBook Pro 16":

3072x1920

MacBook Pro 17":

1920x1200

MacBook Pro 13.3" Retina, MacBook Air 13" Retina, MacBook Air 13.3 "(2020, M1):

2560x1600

Dual monitor:

Triple Monitor:

Quad monitor:

iPhone:

iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS:

320x480

iPhone 4, iPhone 4s:

640x960

iPhone 5, iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, iPhone SE:

640x1136

iPhone 6 , iPhone 6s, iPhone 7, iPhone 8:

750x1334

iPhone 6 plus, iPhone 6s plus, iPhone 7 plus, iPhone 8 plus:

1242x2208

0147

1125x2436

iPhone Xs Max, iPhone 11 Pro Max:

1242x2688

iPhone Xr, iPhone 11:

828x1792

iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 13 mini:

1080x2340

iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone 14:

1170x2532

iPhone 12 Pro Max, iPhone 13 Pro Max, iPhone 14 Plus:

1284x2778

iPhone 14 Pro:

1179x2556

iPhone 14 Pro Max:

1290x2796

Android:

iPad:

iPad, iPad 2, iPad Mini:

768x1024, 1024x768

iPad 3, iPad 4, iPad Air, iPad Air 2, 2017 iPad, iPad Mini 2, iPad Mini 3, iPad Mini 4, 9.
7" iPad Pro:

2048x1536, 1536x2048

10.5" iPad Pro:

262 , 1668x2224

11" iPad Pro:

2388x1668, 1668x2388

12.9" iPad Pro:

2732x2048, 2048x2732

10.9" iPad Air:

2360x1640, 1640x2360

10.2" iPad:

2160x1620, 1620x2160

8.3" iPad mini:

2266x1488, 1488x2266

Surface & Android tablets:

Wallpaper keywords:

License:

Non-Commercial Use, DMCA Contact Us

Pxfuel