Hmmm - let's see - mutabilis is yellow, orange, then red & white. Don't get me wrong - I love it too. How about a white rose for a companion for it?

Jackie

I know, I know...I want something that doesn't clash with a carnival of a rose! ;)

I love white, but I don't want it there for some reason.

What about Rosette Delizy?

The back up plan is to add 2 or three more Mutabilis - which would not break my heart in the least. :)

Something apricot should blend in nicely with Mutabilis. Maybe Pat Austin?

I think Rosette Delizy would be too much. I would go for something white, OR something like Lady Hillingdon. Or, perhaps, Safrano.

IOW, I would pick up ONE of the colors in Mutabilis' shift.

FWIW, here, it is backed by Fortuniana.

I'd even strongly consider Green Rose.

Jeri

I love this photo of Cherino and Mutabilis on HMFRoses. Chamblees has carried Cherino in the past, but I don't know if they carry it now. If you like that color with Mutabilis, perhaps you would like the tea rose Madame Antoine Rebe. MAR has a semi-double flower instead of a fuller one, but when I grew it in the Dallas area it was a real bloom machine. It grew next to Lady Hillingdon and some Indigo Spires sage in that garden.

Here is a link that might be useful: photo of Cherino and Mutabilis on HMF

Thanks for the suggestions. I definitely do want Green Rose somewhere - I look forward to having it in bouquets! Hmmmmm...apricot......I have an Abe Darby in the front....maybe Shropshire Lad? Would that be enough contrast with Jude?

I grew a Pat Austen in another garden and really liked it. You don't think it would be too much with Mutabilis? Pat was so pretty in vases with green nicotiana. Maybe the Green Rose AND Pat?

I have a large Mutabilis against the house wall which is part of a square garden plot which has about 16 other mostly pink roses and none of them clash with Mutabilis in any way. Part of the reason I think is because Mutabilis finishes with deep pink just before the flowers fall off. By the way, I had Abraham Darby next to it until it konked out from the heat and they looked marvelous together. Later I had the tea Mme. Charles which also looked great.

The roses I have there are: Blue Mist, Burgundy Iceberg, Souvenir de la Malmaison, Sister Elizabeth, The Ingenious Mr. Fairchild, Chaucer, La France, Kronprinzessin Viktoria von Preussen, Madame Dore, Mr. Bluebird (2), Cels Multiflora, Leveson Gower, Wife of Bath, yellow irises, lavender irises, cerise pelargoniums, a purple crape myrtle and purple sea lavender. I also had Spice in front of Mubatilis until the latter grew too large, and it looked very good there. Strangely enough the different shades of pink look better with Mutabilis than too many apricots. I had to take out Julia Child because yellow didn't look well near Mutabilis at all.

Ingrid

I agree with Ingrid. I think pinks of all shades work well with Mutablis, and whites. I'm not a yellow fan either. What yellow I have is generally from other plants. Anyway. I love whites, Ducher is a nice one. It does go lemony white in the center. And would be nice in color and in form, smaller (somewhat but i have some easily five feet plus), with Mutablis. i think form matters when i pair roses. Thats just me. But any pink you like would look nice. Rosette Delizy, I agree, is too busy to 'pair' with Mutablis altho it is a beauty. Perle d'Or? Good form and I have it next to my Mutablis and they harmonize well, slightly peachy but softly colored. I'll keep thinking!

My own preference is not to have too many strongly colored roses together. I would put something pale, whether creamy yellow, peach-buff, pale pink, white tinted with yellow or flesh or parchment--any of those mixed soft Tea rose colors. 'Mutabilis' is quite colorful, and combining it with other vivid or saturated hues gives an effect that I find too heavy.

Yikes, I must be losing my eyesight in my old age, but have a Nacogdoches, Dublin Bay Climber, Cramoisi and a mistakenly planted Tropicana all growing close by my Mutabilis and think they work just fine...

You all dont even want to know what I have planted next to my Mutabilis Lol...I have the oh-so-gaudy Austrian Copper as her neighbor! I have no idea what I was thinking, but now they're so intertwined I cant move either. If I could go back, I think I would have paired her with a cream colored rose...maybe Sombriulle? Or maybe a nice creamy tea?

Tammy

Very interesting replies. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder after all! I hope to place another Rogue Valley order later this week or RU. So I have a few more days to wonder, and then some time while the babies are potted up. I like the Pat Austen idea and the pink....Maybe I am holding off on the white/cream idea because I would be seeing my neighbors white plastic-y fence in the background. :( Feel free to post more Mutabilis combination photos if you have them! :)

This post was edited by mountainrose on Sun, Mar 10, 13 at 7:57

Of course....after dismissing the idea of white/cream, I have convinced myself I need 'Hoag House Cream' somewhere. I don't know if I need it more for the sumptuous name or the sumptuous photo at RVR...

I agree, if you have a white fence in the background, white or cream wouldn't work. I saw the picture of Hoag House Cream in RVRs last email...I'll admit, it does look nice!

Tammy

Beautiful pictures!

Ingrid, those are particularly sumptuous pictures.

Mutabilis is an enigmatic rose at my allotment - it has such an airy flexible form, growing upright on slender whippy canes - it looks and behaves more like a perennial rather than a rose (or any other shrub). In fact, many roses alongside it tend to look dumpy and inelegant with flowers which are too large and florid - although another single, Mrs Oakley Fisher can snuggle beneath Mutabilis......and possibly other roses with a simple form (such as other chinas, maybe?).
However, I find this rose to be such a singular presence (like moyesii) that I grow it apart from other roses with grasses (calamagrostis, miscanthus, heliotrichon,stipa gigantea) and, most spectacularly (gah, boasting!) with tall pink gaura and billowy umbellifers such as Ammi majus, Cenolophium denudata (Baltic parsley) and chaerophyllum hirsuta rosea (my spelling and botanical denominations are a bit dodgy!)

Thank you kindly, mountainrose and floridarose. The one picture where Mutabilis is short and not blooming is after I had pruned it rather hard, and on the other pictures you can see that it didn't mind that treatment one bit.

campanula, I can totally visualize growing this rose as you describe it and it would be wonderful. I hope that one day you'll be able to do that and share pictures with us. Most perennials, even the supposedly drought-loving ones, don't do well for me, and I have to resort to a few hardy souls that consent to survive for me.

Ingrid

Ingrid, I grow many perennials as annuals here in fall and winter. They will die out in summer from the heat. I grow most of them from seed, and I have to choose ones that bloom the first year. Can you do that in your climate?

I love all the different "takes" on Mutabilis' circle of friends. It would be fun to give everyone a truck full of the same roses and perennials, and see what different groupings and combinations could be made.

floridarose, I've never grown anything from seed, and choose perennials that can stand the heat. I have lots of rosemary, although not close to the roses, since the bees love them. Same goes for marjoram, which gets very large and has long-lasting tiny white flowers that the bees love. I like the silvery gray-green foliage. My best bloomers are pelargoniums, which I buy in 1-gallon pots and plant with the roses. I have whites and fuchsia-colored ones, and they look great with roses. So do the reblooming irises, whether they're flowering or not. I just had some finish blooming and now another one has started to bloom. Sea lavender (limonium perezii) is one of those plants that makes babies all over the place which is just fine with me. In the first and last pictures you can see the purple flower spikes and a lighter colored one on the right which unfortunately died and did not make any babies. Alyssum comes up every winter after it rains, even though I yank it out in late summer when it dries and looks awful. I've tried many other perennials but for one reason or another over six years these are the only ones, other than day lilies, that seem to have staying power for me.

Ingrid

You've probably solved your problem long ago, but I was reading yesterday that the tea rose Papillon (bred by Nabonnand) looks good with Mutabilis. I might well remove Ms Tillier and try it. It's described as being mid pink to salmon and very changeable.
Trish.

Great thread; I've been wanting Mutabilis for years but haven't got it yet, in part because of doubts about what should go with it...btw, Ingrid, have you ever tried blue salvia (the ornamental perennial) in your garden? That seems very drought-tolerant to me; it is tap-rooted...
Your garden is beautiful! bart