Two that come to mind which are tall enough to hide the legginess and also hardy in zone 4 are Brookside hardy geranium and Walkers Low catmint.

When I saw the title of this post, I immediately thought about you, Karen! You're the queen of beautiful edging in my book. :-)
I think Gardenerzone4's idea of the marigolds would make a nice, tidy edge - but watch out for too much orange that would clash with some of the roses' soft colors. Perhaps yellow ones would be best. I've seen the giant marigolds in a cream color and that would be nice if you could find it in the little guys. The short type of snapdragon works well for me in one bed. They're multicolored, but don't seem to clash with the mix of roses I have there. (However, sometimes they DO upstage them!) I also use alyssum and blue pansies when I can get my hands on them. In an eastern exposure behind the house I find the pansies will grow and bloom all summer since they don't get that hot afternoon sun. Hardy geraniums are another good recommendation, but I'd be cautious with the catmint. Walker's Low is not that - LOW, I mean. It has proved to be a huge plant in my garden and would end up hiding many of my roses if I used it in front of them. I use it as a repeated punctuation *between* large shrub roses along the fence and it is beautiful there - and the hummingbirds adore it.

I have few proper rose beds as most roses are in mixed plantings with all kinds of perennials. A round floribunda bed is edged with low clipped box, double rows of climbers are edged with Dwarf Blue lavender, supposed to be the hardiest variety. Some other edging plants I've used for shorter stretches are wall germander, hyssopus, various nepetas, many violas (love the black Molly Sanderson), auriculas as the foliage stays neat after flowering, lowgrowing hardy geraniums like Rozanne and and Ballerina, and Scutellaria incana.

My absolute favourite with leggy roses is lime green Lady's Mantle. I use it everywhere, in front of taller roses like Therese Bugnet and Ritausma (Polareis) and to unify too disparate plantings, especially with dark red shrub roses, a difficult colour to match. I like lambs' ears with pink roses. Both very conventional choices but they work.

Thank you Anne! (We do love each other's gardens, don't we?). I just got to thinking - a perennial I bought last year as a companion plant to my roses also has the potential to be a great edger. The Veronica 'Royal Candles', pictured below with the Easy Elegance rose Macy's Pride, stays compact and blooms it's pretty head off all summer and fall. I could just see it as a lovely border. Its cluster of pure blue 'candles' really catch the eye.

{{gwi:212343}}

Karen, love the Johnny Jumpups, but too dry here in my garden for their survival.

I use daylilies for edging a couple of the beds. Helps for summer color when the OGR's have faded, but doesn't do much in the winter, of course!

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden Musings blog.

I like to use diathus. They come back for several years here and I add a few each year to keep up. Karen...thank you for the beautiful pictures. I love the Johnny jump ups. It is too hot here for them to last the entire season but I use them in certain places in the spring. Your pictures are som so pretty. Lesley

Many of the same things listed above plus these 3--'Georgia Blue' Veronica, 'Helen von Stein' lambs ear, & 'Moon Beam' coreopsis.

In my main rose bed I use lavender and sea lavender. In my other rose bed I tried annual salvia for the first time. It worked out well.

I'm looking for something evergreen, but not as work intensive as a hedge. I was thinking of miniture gardenia. I have some in parts of my yard and they do well. Anyone have any experience mixing them with roses?

I like to use perennials for the most part so I don't have to replant, but dunno what those would be for zone 4.

I have been most surprised with dwarf snapdragons that the birds first brought and which keep blooming even in the winter here so I've added my own. Salvias have also come back for me, although they die down in the winter. Hardy Geraniums work well everywhere, but be careful of them spreading.

I like gaillardias, especially the red ones, but they don't come back in spring in z8. Black-eyed Susans are pretty too, ymmv. Someone here said that they spread, but that has not been my experience.

Marigolds are nice with pinks if you get the yellow ones with different petal patterns, in that they are easy peasy to throw seed out. I do find them stinky tho' compared to roses which, I guess, is why they are supposed to deter some bug pests.

I think for me, the two main things that I like are compact form so they don't get leggy and need attention and enough variety so it looks like nature planted things here and there rather than look like I've planted a crop.

Karen, the girls are just beautiful. I'll take the tall one's head of hair, please.
Renee

Thanks Renee - I wish I could say my graddaughter got her hair from me, but no such luck!

Buford, I dunno about Georgia, but when I lived in California the gardenias and roses didn't do well together. Gardenias actually want a touch of shade in CA, and they want a much more acid soil than is typical there, although that might work out fine for you in Georgia - you don't have adobe clay of pH 8 there. The smaller gardenias really needed watering more often than the roses did too, but then again CA gets no rain at all in the summer, and you probably do.

What did work well for me in a mild winter climate for evergreen borders was iberis and the very dwarf forms of Pittosporumm tobira, like Wheeler's Dwarf and Creme de Menthe. There are probably new cultivars out now. Boxleaf hebe works well here in our cooler climate of Washington. Japanese holly is a boxwood lookalike that is extremely hardy and is used here in WA much more often that boxwood. It stays nice and dark green all winter where boxwood goes pale from the cold, but it's not much faster growing. In CA I used African boxwood - don't recall the latin name anymore, Myrsinus? - somewhat tender, but faster than boxwood. And here in WA we use an ericaceous shrub called pernyettia or something like that for an evergreen edging, looks very similar to boxwood but faster growing and it does sucker some from the roots.

There's also the evergreen euonymuses - fortunei I think is the common small leaved variegated one that can be either a clinging viney thing or somewhat shrubby depending on how you prune it. There's also something similar to the boxleaf hebe that I think is a boxleaf euonymus, E. microphlylla or something like that. That one makes a very nice dark green evergreen border. And in Georgia you should be able to grow the dwarf forms of true myrtle, Myrtus communis.

Gardenerzone4, roses are leggy, no matter what. Just the nature of the beast. That's why we all have suggestions for border and edging plants.

I would advise against using any of the nepetas, and most of the hardy geraniums, as they are very aggressive spreaders. Alyssum is great. Marigolds too, and snapdragons, lobelia, ageratum. I have some daylilies as well, and lavender. Mini roses can be used as borders and edging too as they can be kept very low and don't go as bare at the base.

Thanks Reg! I appreciate the input!

Erigeron Karvinskianus, the annual nemophilas and limnanthes, Hidcoate lavender, many types of dianthus, perennial flax, Hebe pinguifolia (Red Edge) juniper, waldsteinia, epimediums, corydalis, creeping phlox (subulata or stolonifera) alchemilla, saxifrages, armeria, thymus, prostrate rosemary, sempervivum and sedum, helianthemum (sun rose) and cistus(rock rose)