A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Plants and Flowers Forum what to plant behind roses bushes?

Hi Everyone, This is my first post! I have a row of rose bushes in front of my house (red double knockouts), but there is about 4 feet of empty space between the roses and the house, so I was wondering what would be something good to plant behind them? some kind of bush maybe?

Julie

Can you tell us your zone?

Oh guess that might help lol. I'm in zone 5B, St. Louis MO

Hi, another question for you. Do you have windows that you do not want to block on that wall of your house? Do remember that you will need to trim any shrubbery you put there and working around roses can be prickly. If you put in shrubs that need a lot of trimming it could get difficult to work there.

yep there are windows there, they're pretty tall though and I don't mind if the bottom half is covered

There should be plenty of sun in the spot for the roses to thrive. But here is a list of ones that will tolerate some shade.

They get a ton of sun, I planted them last spring and they grew like weeds all summer long. I'm wanting something to plant behind them though because there's a lot of empty space between them and the house and it looks sort of strange. I was thinking maybe something thats evergreen so there'd be some color in the winter.

Julie I live about 45 minutes NE of you.

I was thinking perhaps some lillies or russian sage???

when my Sage gets a bit out of hand so to speak, I use the circular and semi-circular supports to keep it where I want it.

ooh that russian sage is pretty, I was hoping for something evergreen though. In the winter EVERYTHING is brown, my house, the mulch, the rose bushes, my burning bushes, the grass, its sooo depressing!

Do you have a pic of your house that you could share? I'm wondering if a nice walk way might work...you don't want to cram anything against your roses, they need good air circulation....and you also need to keep shrubs off your house to prevent mildew on your siding or moisture against bricks and bug infestation away.

Do you want the shrub to be higher than the roses so you can see it from the street? Or is it just to fill in the space and height doesn't matter.

I have this before & after pic of when I first planted the roses, they are MUCH bigger now though, and no height doesn't really matter

Oh very pretty, I love brick houses. The red roses are striking.


Green Mountain Boxwood's would be lovely for winter curb appeal. They get about 5 ft high and up to 3 ft wide. I'd love to own one but have never been able to get any in at our local nursery, they look so pretty.

Here's a pic I found to show you...

I love that you fly the American flag.

Thanks Bestofour, I'm surprised that so many people don't have them. Tamara, that boxwood is really pretty, I'll have to look around and see if I can find them here. Thanks!

Hi
Why don't you try again roses ??? If you plant roses, then your garden blossoms full of roses and becomes more attractively .....