i would remove all the XL green grass and the other flowers remove the bricks and plant one or two red roses Olympiad and or Erotica OR one red with one white pope JPII

Make the planter bigger. It's not too crowded, it's too small.

There....are....no....words.....oh my, I can't catch my breath. I haven't had such a good chuckle since-----oh---the day I wore my I AM "YOU PEOPLE" T-shirt.

Kenstar, is the goal to not have to redig & replace the hardscape border? Because personally, I'd just enlarge it a bit and scoot everything outwards and increase the diameter. I think the colors are lovely together, but it's just a bit crowded.

If that's not a satisfactory suggestion, I've seen on here before the pairing of the delicate, light blue Forget-me-nots with Orange or Coral roses, and I think it's just lovely.

The idea is to KEEP the rose, and replace the daylilies. I can't enlarge the bed, because of the small area of yard there (we live in a mobile home park and that particular bed is already butting up against the neighbors yard and on the other side my DH has his raised veggie beds close by). I do have plenty of forget-me-nots already that I can plant there. It's a thought! They do look lovely in spring! They stop blooming though by this time of year and don't bloom again till the next spring. So, they would look great for a time but would just be green the rest of the year. However, you probably came up with the best suggestion because I wouldn't have to buy anymore plants, having all the forget-me-nots I can handle already! Hmmmm... I think I found the answer! :)

Thanks all for the suggestions!

I like forget-me-nots but they really look ugly for the rest of the season after they finish blooming and go to seed - which is right about now. If you want a small, long-blooming, blue flower, the very best I've ever grown are varieties of campanula carpatica. My favorite is a hybrid variety called 'Samantha'. In my garden, it's just starting to bloom and it'll keep blooming until mid-Fall.

Here is a link that might be useful: Images of 'Samantha'

Perhaps I might suggest having Livin Easy in center and only something simple like a low circular boarder of alyssum or lobelia. It would look neat and tidy, and easily allow for a second round if fertilizer for the rose. The best white would be alyssum I think, and the best blue colors are lobelia varieties. The pink or purple varieties might look too washed out next to the bright colors of Livin Easy, I'm not completely sure. There might be some hybrids with suitable nuances I'm not aware of too.

The advatage with lobelia and alyssum is they can be bought fairly early in the season, last much longer than forget-me-nots and usually doesn't cost much in multiple packs of small plants, which are ideal for boarder plating.

If you want something nice early on when the nights still might be frosty and the rose is still just twigs, green house grown pansies are a great start in spring. They last at least until it's time for alyssum and lobelia. If you dig in some organic slow releas fertilizer and good compost before planting, alyssum and lobelia usually last until autumn and frost comes, flowering continuously. Small flowered pentunias and surfinias like million bells hybrids would work as a boarder too, but if you have trouble with slugs, they need to be taken care of. The small leafed varieties often look best for boarders. Lobelia and alsyssum are usually not troubled by slugs at all. There is unfortunately no perennial alternative to lobelia and alyssum, they all have just a few weeks of bloom.

Pot the day lilies. They're too big and bushy and hide the rose. I would suggest some kind of dianthus which would bloom through out the season like the rose. They come in a lot of colors and for me they are perennials. I can't say for you but I think some might be. My other suggestion would be bell flowers which also have a long bloom season, stay compact and mounding and are hardy. I know they come in blue and white and I think maybe pink too.

Hmmm... I like the idea of the alyssum! I grew some last year in my annuals bed. The white kind is fragrant too! Added bonus since my Livin Easy isn't very scented. Sweet Alyssum would look nice too! All that pretty, dainty white flowers. Oh, decisions, decisions! Looks like I may have to take another ride over to the Garden Center again tomorrow. Oh NO! Me and garden centers! Dangerous place to be lol!

I also vote for making planting bed bigger; but I get irritated with my daylilies this time of year anyway.

I really like the look of salvia May Night with roses. The dark violet color complements pretty much any color of roses, and the habit is a great shape for putting in front of roses--the salvia has thick green leaves at the base, where roses tend to be ugly, and then airy spikes of flowers higher up that you can see through, and they're the ideal height. Also it blooms pretty much nonstop from April to frost for me.

The only negative I can think of are that you do need to deadhead the flower spikes to keep it looking neat--the dead spikes get stinky and are prone to powdery mildew.

By its' third year, 'Living Easy' is going to be a pretty huge rose and is going to easily take over that whole space. You will need a very low-growing groundcover; Mike's suggestions are excellent ideas. If you're open to planting annuals, there are excellent choices that are tidy, well-behaved plants that you could tuck around the rose.

Well, I took a ride to my garden center. They were sold out of Sweet Alyssum. I bought instead some Superbena Royale Chambrays to go around the rose. Looks nice so far, and they are annuals so I can change it up next year if I want. Looks MUCH better than before! Take a look---

It loooks great, you can always have allyssum another time. Works really nice with colors, sizes and all. Would be interesting to see a picture from later in the season too ;-)

Regards

Thanks taoseeker! I will try the sweet alyssum next season, and make sure I get to the garden center in time to get some. :) For now though, it looks a lot better, and I will post a pic when they fill in!

Oh, and I potted up the daylilies and they'll look nice next to my back steps!

That looks lovely, kentstar! I also have a 'thing' for verbena. Love those purples & can't pass up the velvety red ones, either.

Excellent job! It's fun to experiment, isn't it?

Looks great, Ken!!

Thanks! This is actually the 4rd time trying to experiment and find something that works there! The first time I planted campanulas around it and while they look nice and are short enough, they didn't do well for me really. The second time I planted achilleas there, and those looked really floppy and messy. The third time was trying the daylilies around it and you can see how that turned out lol! So, this is the 4th go round. Maybe now I finally found a way to make that small "specimen" bed look nice :)

Yes, verbena was a lucky find. Often the best way to shop for "ready to plant" plants is to be able to find something usefull from what's available. The superbenas looks like they are ideal for the bed. Sometimes I like simple best too. We fuzz and try to follow all kinds of trends and inspirations; making paths and movement in the smallest of garden space, clever combinations of leaves, textures, forms and colors. We might miss out on the solutions that is presenting it's self in the moment. I mean, what is right in front of us are the ingredients we are suppose to work with.