I can't impagine a real garden without other plants. This is going to be rose farm, not garden in my opinion.
I grow everything I like, peonies, irisis, lilacs, mockoranges, daylilies, asiatic and oriental lilies, all kind of salvia, aquilegias, campanulas, deliphiniums, foxglowes, nigellas, etc, etc. You name it, I grow it :)
I even mix fruit trees (persimmons, figs, tart cherries, whatever can be grown here no spray) and berries (blackberry, raspberries, gooseberries, currants, musk strawberries, etc).
I totally enjoy it.
Olga

Although roses are the majority of the plants I grow, I have a number of shade tolerant and shade loving plants I also grow in a semi wooded area. Rhododendrons, azaleas, Lily of the vally, rose of sharon, Weigela, lilac, forthysia, butter fly bushes, bee balm, daisys, Potentilla, hostas, forget me not, honeysuckle, brown eyed susan, and a number of others I can't remember right now.
They all fit into an area on the south side of my house seen from the kitchen window. 75% of the yard is roses.

Like Karl, about 75% of mine is roses. The are the star, the focal point. They're what everyone notices, and what gives me joy. But 25% is companion planting/shade planting/evergreens. They are what make my garden, a 'garden', not just a collection.

We have mostly roses, a Viburnum to attract birds, Perilla Fantasy's, Sunjoy Gold Pillar Barberry and working on adding a few other flowers and shrubs.

Since I have a small yard I would say 75% of my garden is everything else, hostas, brunnera, heuchera, iris, daylilies, forget-me-nots, clematis, veronica, salvia,etc, etc... And, 25% is roses.

I grow lots of Hydrangeas, climbing Hydrangeas (& vines, like Decumaria & Schizophragma, that are often called climbing Hydrangeas.) I've grown peonies for years, but in the last several years I've focused primarily on tree peonies. Japanese maples and terrestrial orchids are also objects of fascination. One of my new passions is variegated Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia variegata) . . . I'm growing that one up every tree trunk that isn't already hosting a climber of another kind.

I grow mostly roses, and the other flowers I spend a lot of $$ ordering are iris, succulents, and exotic hybrid hibiscuses. I put in orders for all that every year, I can't help myself. Then it's daylilies, peonies, hydrangeas, gladioli, and annuals such as fuschias, geraniums, petunias. I also grow many orchids and african violets. One of my friends said that if it doesn't have 15 colors in it or it's not weird, I won't grow it. I seem to gravitate towards the high maintenance or unusual stuff..

I love roses but I also love bulbs. I grow lilies (Golden Splendor and Regale), Peruvian daffodils, tuberose, dahlia, daffodils, ginger lily and hyacinths. I also grow perennials like lamb's ears (love to touch them!!), columbines and dianthus. And I always grow tons of annuals like marigolds (so cheery!), love in a mist as a 'base' for my roses, poppies that self-seed and zinnias (the cut and come again kind). Indoors, I grow orchids.

This year after years of resisting I finally succumbed to temptation and bought seeds of blue poppy. Lord only knows how they're going to survive in my clayey soil and HOT summer :-( but I want to at least try. They make my heart sing :-D and I will never forget the huge clump I saw in Alaska. OMG a heart-stopping sight! I think I love them more than roses! If I fail, I fail but at least I'll have tried :)

I've collected plants and trees for 25 years ever since we moved out in the country and I have 2.5 acres to play in. One of my oldest treasures is a pass-along Smoke tree from my grandma's yard from the Ozarks.

I currently have 300 roses, interplanted among daylilies, iris, clematis, coneflowers, candytuft, poppies, Miss Kim lilacs, tree peonies....and then there are the shade gardens! I have been blessed with old, massive oak trees, and have taken advantage of all the shade to plant lots of hostas, ferns, and heucheras.

I'm always on the look-out for a pretty face to add to my plant family.

I adore roses, but they're essentially just part of my "garden." I use them as (delightful!) blooming shrubs/climbers mixed in with everything else.

i love my roses but in recent years, i have discovered the joys of collecting hostas! i have spent more on hostas this season than roses and that is a sign of things to come i think.
after such a terrible spring here in the PNW there is so much downy mildew, blind growth and sawfly larva, that i'm afraid it ain't going to be much of a first flush for the queen of flowers this year...

My gardens are almost exclusively roses ... acres with 800 of them and counting. The first garden I put in here, though, is a shade border. I started out as a hosta and weird-shade-plant collector, and I am working on a large shade garden with paths and camellias, and colonies of helebores and hostas, around my picnic pavillion.

I also have the requisite bulbs (daffodils, lots and lots of daffodils), iris, and as many peonies as I can get my hands on.

Roses get the sunny real estate here. I really am a rose farm, after all. I love being a farmer! :)

Connie

Like Kenstar, I have a small yard so 25% of it is roses. The rest are ferns, lilies, lavendar, Hydranges, thyme, violets, astilbes, azaleas plus some other stuff. I love perennials but I have started growing annuals from seed to be fillers.

My Yard is small too :( Join the club.
Olga

The roses are the star performers but I grow all kinds of plants with them. Small trees like cornelian cherries and Japanese ornamental cherries, shrubs like viburnums and lilacs, bulbs and perennials in mixed borders. I grow ramblers up fruit trees and a large Chloris is as tall as the plum tree next to it and intertwined with it.

But I also have walks with only tall roses on both sides, a formal round boxedged bed with modern floribundas, with a different colour in each of the four segments, like a fruit tart, and also thickets of wild roses.

I have multiple obsessions. Beside roses I have "problems" with:

azaleas
rhododendrons
hosta
Siberian Iris
clematis
heuchera
viburnums
hummingbird garden plants

The other hundred or so types of plants I grow are not considered a problem.

{{gwi:227067}}

Roses are the back bone of our garden BUT since moving to a cooler climate We have many bulbs and other weeds(wild flowers). Wild strawberries, blackberries, a Cherry Tree,5-20 bulb beds of Daffodils, 2-16 bulb sections of Tulips(all the same color. Deep purple),A mass planting of hardy Day Lillies (about 100 or so), big bed of Irises',a bunch of Tree Lillies abound a Maple tree with Giant Allium' mixed in, mor Tree Lillies spred around the property,2 Hydrangea(sp?)that I rooted from an old abandoned house, plus ferns and other potted plants. Yea,we have a pretty good spred of "other" stuff. :-) Almost forgot our Glads. A bunch of them mixed in with the Day Lillies

I can't imagine roses only as being a garden. I grow mostly old roses and Austins and am trying for a natural effect that will blend into the surrounding hills. I'm all for easy-care plants and not too many, but something that will give color, line and a contrast to the billowy forms of the roses. I have day lilies, irises, sea lavender, several varieties of penstemons, pelargoniums, Mexican evening primroses, Jerusalem sage, lavender, rosemary, butterfly bushes, marjoram (which the bees go crazy over) and some sages. I've kept the color palette to white, pink, lavender pink, lavender and purple with the odd yellow for contrast. I have photographs on a recent thread on the Antique Forum and the Antique Gallery titled something like Roses in the Fog which will give you a good idea of what kind of rose garden I have.

Ingrid

Harryshoe, I'm assuming that's a clematis in the pic you posted. Does it have a name? I just planted a clematis viorna and am so excited about the bell-shaped blooms.

I just started growing roses (I have about 40) but they are only a part of my gardens. I mix in lilacs, butterfly bushes, blueberries, coneflowers, salvias, lavender, and even veggies. Also lots of annuals, especially alyssum...helps keep the weeds down and great fragrance :)

Roses are beautiful, but I stick to mostly old-fashioned, hardy types...so mostly pink and white with a few crimson/purples. Roses are beautiful, have a great history, and I only pick the ones with wonderful fragrance plus they're non-toxic (unlike a lot of plants)...to my horses, visiting children, barn kitties etc.

Teeandcee,

The clematis in that picture is Betty Corning. She is a Viticelli type and is very vigorous with blooms all summer long.

I grow 90% roses in my......uhh...."garden". I could see myself almost exclusively growing roses, although I'd probably throw in a few hydrangeas, weigelas, peonies, and the like. A good perennial companion plant for me with a Graham Thomas would be something like an Ebb Tide or Pretty Jessica haha.

I am with Olga on this one though I am jealous because I cannot grow lilac here, the peonies are pathetic and the Delphiniums die by July if I bother to plant them but I have many perennials and bulbs planted with the roses.
Rasberries were productive only in the first year, of gooseberries, currants we can only just dream about. We have Japanese persimmon and figs and I have a lemon and tangerine tree in the ground that we kept alive for many years and they produce delicious fruits. On a huge arbor in the back we grow kiwis. Other fruit trees do not bear fruit in this awfully humid and insect-ridden climate, just provide shade. All in all, I try to have a garden, not a rose farm but my yard is quite small.

I can't immagine a garden with nothing but roses. Now I do love my roses. But I love my daylilies, lilies, iris, shrubs and butterfly attracting plants also. You are now going to have the room in your new yard so why now have a diversity of plantings? I think you might enjoy your garden more that way.

Harryshoe, thanks. I've wanted Betty Corning for a long time and only just discovered there are plenty of bell-shaped clematis besides Betty. I love the wilder, more subtle appearance.