Alliums and roses

14 years ago

I hope someone here has some experience with this. It falls under the category of 'companion planting' or is it inter cropping?

When I got my place a little over two years ago, I wanted to grow all edible plants. If not directly edible, then they should help by either attracting bees, other beneficial insects, or be a trap crop for bad insects. If anything is purely ornamental, then it better be very beautiful for me to remember to water it....

The place came with a lot of roses. I counted them, there are 54 of them. Size of the lot is only 1/4 of an acre, so the roses are taking a big chunk of that. My first words, why so many roses? should I take them out and plant something useful? Then they bloomed and I fell in love. I know, roses ARE edible, and I have enjoyed hips tea and hips syrup from them already. I also enjoy looking at them and smelling them, some have an amazing fragrance.

I had read that alliums do well with roses. Last year we grew enough of all vegetables, with the exception of onions and potatoes, so this year, more onions and more potatoes! I recently started weeding around the roses, leaving plenty of space for air circulation around their roots (they get fungal diseases you know) and planting onion, garlic and shallot starts all along the soaker hose we use to water them. They started to sprout already and they look good!

In order to plant the alliums I had to remove some pesky little ornamental plant that looks like alliums (and has bulbs) but it is an ornamental (no scent). Very bad choice since it could be confused with a real allium. By the way, i find allium flowers very beautiful, so to me they are better ornamentals than what is there... I do not know what it is, i still have a lot of it (it will take me a while to eradicate) and it produces a not too exciting little white lily-like flower. The greenery looks like lush grass. They reproduce by bulb and seed both (and too much!). Not sure what it is, but while digging them out I found a lot of white powder around them. Would that be a chemical fertilizer they put around the roses? This place is full of beneficial insects and all sorts of nice insect attracting 'wild' flowers, so I doubt they were too heavy on 'chemical' gardening. At least I hope so.

I wonder if any of you know what the white powder might be, and if anyone has done this inter cropping with alliums and roses, do you have any advice or suggestions for me? Do not send me to the rose forum, people there are disgusted with folks like me who try to plant edibles close to their roses. By the way, I also have mint, parsley, zatar (Syrian oregano) and regular oregano in parts of the rose garden. Those are all doing very well so far.

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Comments (9)

lavender_lass
14 years ago
I don't have an answer for you, just a suggestion. There's not a lot of traffic, but there is an organic rose forum and you might also want to try the herb forum (which is busier). There are a lot of people over there who use roses with herbs and other edibles.

I also love roses, but only grow organically, so I'm looking for plants to put with the roses. I was thinking of trying garlic and chives with some herbs. The herb forum has been very helpful and patient with my many questions :)
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mauirose
14 years ago
i don't really know what the white powdery stuff might be but sometimes people put phosphorus or bonemeal down when they plant bulbs. Seems like a long time for it to persist in the garden, tho.

Do not send me to the rose forum, people there are disgusted with folks like me who try to plant edibles close to their roses.

LOL Cabrita! May be true for some but not a few rose growers use herbs to provide cover for the 'bare legs' of their roses. i have heard of rose growers using society garlic as a companion plant in an effort to deter bugs but i have also heard them complain that it smells terrible and reproduces too aggressively (!). i do not recognize the plant you are describing tho'.
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Dill would probably look beautiful. I have bronze fennel planted with roses, and it gets lots of compliments. And...I know this is heresy, but in that same bed I have TONS of mint. Basically, Kentucky Colonel is the main filler for the bed, with large plants of bronze fennel and rosemary to the back (it is against a white brick wall). There are two Zephirine Drouhin (antique climber) plants in the back, and 3 mini roses in amongst the mint. Oh, and clematis. They compete just fine and look smashing. The entire thing is edged in the front with Lemon and Silver Thyme. To top it all off, there is a vigorous young (about 7 years old) mulberry tree in one corner of the bed with honeysuckle and morning glories growing all over it!!! Talk about a lot of "invasives"!!! It all does great year after year. The thymes have to be replaced every few years, but they would have to be anyway. They grow huge, and weep over the side of the bed. Not that I haven't had some failures in that bed...I originally had more Greek Oregano in that bed than mint, but over the years it has dwindled to a few mere sprigs. I'm giving up on that bed for oregano. In addition, I have never had much luck with other mint varieties competing against the KY Col. I have probably planted 6-8 different mints in there over the years, with different degrees of disaster. Some can hold their own but never get very big (like bigger than 12" high and wide), while others just never return in the spring. I second the suggestion that you go organic. Antique roses and minis generally work well for organic, IME. I don't have any, but I'll bet the same is true for landscape-type shrub roses, if that's what you're going for. The only thing is, they might get so big outwards that they'll envelope your herbs. Good luck!
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Well, Rouge, I had hoped so myself, hence my wild planting of literally hundreds of them...and while the bulbs may well be magnificently ignored underground, it appears that every living creature also enjoys some oniony salads for their meals...because not a single bulb has managed to rise more than 2 inches above ground without being comprehensively munched to a nub. I am disappoint.
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whgille
14 years ago
Hi Cabrita

I had a rose garden in Phoenix, and had plain garlic cloves growing around them, it is advised for some bug control, it did look fine, you could also grow some chives.

Silvia
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dicot
14 years ago
My first guess on the white powdery stuff is it's organic matter decomposed in a de-oxygenated state (like you'll sometime see in an unturned compost pile). Could also be mold spores.

Are you sure those aren't a different allium bulb, Cabrita? See the current discussion on A. triquetrum (wild onion) in the CA forum. Pretty invasive, so it could be them, but they (and all alliums) are edible.

I'm not a big fan of roses, so I'd never spend my time on that many. Just think of all the citrus you could be growing instead! Or borage, which is a great edible flower and pollinator attractor. Same for the CA wild radish, fennel, and wild celery (Apium graveolens).

You might also try some cilantro too around the alliums and roses and let if flower, that's a nice mix I've seen before. Instead of alliums, nasturtiums can also grow at the bottom of a rosebed for edible companion planting.

Here is a link that might be useful: Allium triquetrum
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cabrita
Original Author
14 years ago
Thanks for the responses!

dicot, I googled allium triquetrum and it is not what I have. My silly allium looking ornamental has absolutely no scent. Something in the lily family. I will take a picture when and if it blooms, I doubt I will eradicate the whole thing this year. I do not mind the roses, but will like them better if i am able to inter-crop with edibles. I already have too many citrus! I would like more room for more beans and more tomatoes though.

Silvia, i have garlic around some, onions around some others, and this year I am also trying shallots. It is all sprouting and looking good.

Mauirose, is society garlic a special type of garlic? I do have some regular garlic growing there. Garlic and onions smell nice to me, but different than roses for sure....LOL. As far as other herbs, oregano and marjoram do very well around roses too.
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mauirose
14 years ago
i think of society garlic as an ornamental plant- variegated strap like leaves, pretty purple flowers. Supposedly edible tho'. i have tossed the flowers into salads occasionally.

Nasturtiums are real land grabbers in my rose beds but they do make a good trap crop for cabbage moths.

i am growing shallots this year for the first time but not with my roses! i have read that they are day neutral but Johnny's lists latitudes. We'll see.
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flora_uk
14 years ago
cabrita - those little Allium look alikes might be Ornithogalum or Muscari. Both are a menace at spreading by bulbils.
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cabrita
Original Author
14 years ago
Mauirose, I have lots of nasturtiums growing too. I planted them with the squash and cucumber last year and they self seed enthusiastically around here, so they are all around. Nice under fruit trees too!

Flora, I also have the Ornithogalum (did not know the name, used goggle image) but it is more controlled and not the one that has become rampant/invasive. The one that is more 'weed' like is smaller, has a v as a leave cross section (like garlic), the bulbs are the size of small scallion and a lighter green than the onions. The Muscari I do not have. There are also lots of calendula and larkspur growing semi-wild between the roses. I leave a few of those as long as they still give me space for the onions, shallots, garlic, parsley, oregano....
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borderbarb
14 years ago
Ditto on Nasturtiums.[my ANGEL FACE has a carpet of 'nasties' with a few bearded iris.] You might try sweet potato vines. [I had two in front yard and they spread under the roses -- but not the tubers, which were separated from roses by edging. Anyway, made for a very pretty scene .... tree roses rising above a bed of greenery. I like a wild-woodsy look in the yard.[tho I did hear a passer-by growl to his wife who was cooing over the yard.."looks like a d** jungle to me" ... made my day!]

I've thought that swiss chard and bell peppers are pretty enough for perennial borders.... but haven't tried yet.
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Alliums and roses

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Alliums and roses

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