This year I tried a border in one bed of plume Gallardia, and it was spectacular. Covered in blooms and they finally bloomed themselves out this week. Pulled them up and saved lots of seeds.

But my all-time favorites with the roses are larkspur and Queen Anne's lace, which gets large so you have to be careful where you put it.

I love Queen Anne's lace I want to find some wild and dig those beauties up :) and those blue flowers that you find growing along the sides of roads, yea those to are my favorite :)

Since the roses are new to my beds, they are making nice companions to the iris's, glads, belladonna lily, cala lily. Note those are all bulbs, when we worked in other areas we collected the bulbs we found and moved them to these beds as fillers for another time and more garden cash.

This year we could reconfigure and move those off and on to different areas and put the roses in what looks like a more established bed.

But my favorite with the roses have been the lavenders that I put in, some have out grown their zone so they have also been moved and smaller lavenders replaced them.

In one bed I am putting in a variety of blue and purple salvias, nothing like sitting back and watching the hummingbirds enjoy the flowers too

Like Kippy, I'm enjoying watching the hummingbirds hovering around the big blue salvia plants I put in.

Their color is a nice contrast to the roses.

Daylily "Indian Giver" is a gorgeous rich purple with white accents and its has dozens of buds. I like.

Nothing unusual or innovative but still thrilling to me...
Sutton's apricot foxgloves and Jaqueline du Pre made an astounding pairing - the apricot stamens of the rose and the overall pale softness was an (accidental) pairing which I will definately be repeating. Knautia macedonica, purple toadflax and Hidcote lavender have hovered above and through Cardinal Hume and Jasmina - an enjoyable purplefest. Scarlachglut and acid green euphorbias and geranium psilostemon - glowing, even a bit shouty in the sunlight. Finally, a little vignette long in the making is finally coming into maturity - R,moyessi, backed with purple hazel with a swathe of perovskia in front - at all times of the year, this is one of my favourite allotment views but in autumn, on a misty fen morning, it is guaranteed to make me realise just what is so fulfilling about creating a garden.

Ooh, Camp, apricot foxgloves. I love foxgloves, but the only ones I can grow are the dwarf, Foxy.

why is that, Florida? Is it availability of seeds? I usually sow mine just about now (have got some dwarf yellows as well as the Sutton's this year). I do rip them out after they have flowered and sow them every year because they quickly revert to the usual pinks (those busy bees) but it is one of the easier seed sowing jobs - I just chuck around 100 in a 5 inch pot in a plastic bag and wait till leaves appear. Of course, your hot climate may make all the difference but if you can grow Foxy.....

My columbines out did themselves this year!

My garden does not have "companion plants" - it just has plants of many kinds, including roses. Here is a picture - the rose is the old tea Anna Olivier. Is the tree a companion?... the 90 year old heritage rhododendron?... the 107 yr old house?

Anyway, I like things all mixed up - everything is a companion to everything else!

Jackie

{{gwi:296437}}

Seil, I am with you on the Columbines! Mine are still going and going and going

I shook their seed pods all over, have to see if I have more next year.

Camp, Foxy blooms the first year. The taller ones rot in our heat and humidity before they can bloom. Foxy has to be replanted every year.

ah, I see, Floridars. There have been some newish perennial foxgloves available called the camelot series which come in white, cream, pink and lilac, don't get too tall and most importantly, flower the first year from an early sowing. Not too tall either - the cream, speckled daintily with deep red, are charming plants. I know T&M sell the seeds, either single colours or in mixed lots. I am about to remove great clumps gone over foxgloves and like oriental poppies, they do tend to leave large gaps in the planting (just right for pots of lilies, if you can be bothered).

Thanks, Camp, I will look for Camelot and try them if I can get the seeds.

JessicaB, I think you might be happier planting a flower called Orlaya, rather then digging wild Queen Anne's Lace and transplanting. QAL is a relative of carrots...it has a root like a carrot and they do not like transplanting. You could gather seed when its ripe, but the orlaya is a prettier flower, and reliably self sows for me every year. Its marvelous for cutting, and beautiful in the garden.

Caladium-- all over the place, and they naturalize and come up every year, they don't like the cold..sally

or, Jessica, take a look at chaerophyllum hirsutum roseum or selinum wallichianum as perennial umbellifers or even cenolophium denudata (I am somewhat obsessed with this family of plants).