The HT form is awkward wherever you put it, but I think that it would certainly benefit from being among shrub shaped bushes. Duchesse de Branbant gets very tall here (7-8 feet), but perhaps not where you live. I would put the OGRs at the back of the bed, so that their blossoms would show through the places where the HTs have bare legs. You could also put OGRs and HTs next to each other, so that the flowers intermingle - some people have a horror of this, I know, but it looks beautiful. You could also put some of the smaller OGRs like the older polyanthas in front of the HTs. Just be careful re the colors - most OGRs have subtle, changeable colors of light pink, buff, peach, cream, pale yellow & white - there are plenty of HTs that would go well with these, but also some that wouldn't. Experiment!

Jackie

You can do whatever you want. It's your garden!

Personally, I think the only way to grow HTs is with something smaller and shrubby in front. I have Mr. Lincoln with Clothilde Soupert in front. Graham Thomas (ok, not an HT, but big and leggy) with Rose de Rescht in front.
Anita

Another idea might be to mix in smaller companion plants so that you're not just looking at roses and comparing the two types because there's something in between or in front that acts as a buffer. Could be lavender, day lilies, irises or a zillion other things that you like and that do well in your areas. Frankly, I find roses by themselves a big yawn unless they're huge, spectacular shrubs with great foliage. Just my personal opinion of course.

Ingrid

Ingrid, I can't believe you just bought some minis:-).

I mix OGRs and HTs. Roses of one type in a row is not my kind of garden.

Masha

I sure hope so! I'm putting in teas around the knobbly knees of the HTs that were here when I bought the house.

The issue for me is that the OGRs grow so much faster and are much more vigorous than the HTs. You have to be careful with spacing. IMO HTs belong in their own bed-nothing wrong with companion planting of other flowers, but I think they would look mismatched with OGRs, unless they were able to grow to similar bush sizes. That is just me, I am a zone colder and HTs don't grow very big here.

I envy people who are organized enough to ask questions like that. Mine just go wherever there's space.

What Anita and catsrose said. Do what you like. If you end up not liking, move them. I've got stuff placed all over, HTs, minis, OGRs, polys, floris... Camp Chaos, that's what I would name my rose garden, if I was organized enough. ;-)

Diane----that is a wonderful name for a garden like mine--"Camp Chaos"---my poor roses are overcrowded. I usually plant where the soil is viable---
Speaking of Lafter---It is very healthy and quite tall rose---hard to believe it is a Hybid Tea rose.
I have to really reach up to get to the top blooms and I'm very tall--trying to dead-head a young Lafter --the blooms are lovely and very fragrant.
{{gwi:286472}}

{{gwi:208403}}

Florence

Thank you all. Ingrid, I should have said a mixed perennial border, that is usually what I try to do. I only have one bed which is kind of like soldiers in a row and that was my very first bed.

I am only organized when thinking about a new bed or area and I consider the possibilities endlessly.

Because my OGR's are young and small I've interspersed HT's purchased cheaply so there are some roses to look at while the OGR's mature. HT's don't survive long here in FL because the rootstock is wrong and only 1 is on Fortuniana (the correct stock).

The relative ugliness of the HT form is camouflaged with the OGR's, daylilies, and salvias. And the flowers are pretty.

The main issue for me is not form but color-really modern roses often seem to clash to my eye-the reds in particular stand out and scream amongst the more muted crimson based OGRS. They make me think of candy...but that is just me and everyone sees things differently. Beauty is where you find it and there are no garden police.

patricia

I do this and it works just fine.
Just make sure you don't put 2 HTs together- Go OGR, HT, OGR. An OGR on each side of the HT.
In your example, with 3 Lafters and only 2 OGRS- If you went Lafter, OGR, Lafter, OGR, Lafter: You'd have a funny looking bed, cause the tall ugly ones would be on each end NOT surrounded by a bushy OGR.

And yes, I did just call Lafter tall and ugly. Wonderful healthy rose, but dang. It needs surrounding.

I must add- All of my beds are not technically beds. There is no front or back. They all form a side of a path. So the front of a bed from one path would also be the front of the bed from another path. If I had beds with backs, I would put the tall lanky HTs in between and BEHIND the OGRs.

IMHO, the most important thing to remember when dealing with Lafter is that it is a New Dawn grandchild. Given what it can do here in one growing season, I would really expect it to be usable as a climber in warmer places. It certainly gives signs of being a better climber than say Westerland.

Lafter here grows really tall, too tall to deadhead unless you are actually pruning. Maybe 9' with blooms on top. Really adds to the structure of the garden by adding the height element. But the stems aren't bendy enough for climbing- or at least it's hard to bend them down to deadhead- can't imagine trying to train horizontally!

Maybe Lafter is too tall for me....I am a lot shorter than Florence and she can barely reach it. I just love the colors.

Redsox-----I've been rather lax in pruning Lafter--I've been wondering if it could be kept to a reasonable height with consistent pruning---I think I will try it and see what happens.

As you can tell my garden has been pretty much neglected.

Florence

Some people can pull off ANYTHING. Pretty perennials can hide HTs' bare legs, and endless watering and spraying can keep them relatively well-foliated.

But for most of us, HTs belong in the vegetable patch. That's where my great-grandparents kept theirs. There was no pressure for the poor scraggly things to be pretty, out with the corn and the turnips. And nobody worried about spoiling the 'effect' when cutting blooms. Garden Club ladies and Church Ladies knew they were welcome to let themselves in by the back gate and cut every last bloom.

If there is no vegetable patch, HTs are best confined to pots, where (in the hot, humid South) they will do better than in the ground. Plus, when they croak (which they will), you won't have to worry about diseases they've left in the soil.

Currently, I'm worried about replacing nine Don Juan climbers and Ten Griffith Buck Serendipity 'shrubs'. All of them have turned out to be "bare sticks with blooms on the ends", as a Cajun friend describes HTs. Maybe I'm just bitter... (so please forgive my abrasive tone).

This prohibition does not apply to the rare HTs that actually have foliage (I've heard tell of these, but have yet to actually see one). But I know a lady with a garden staff of nine, who either segregates her HTs in a walled cutting garden (sort of an ICU for roses), or has them grown in pots, to be positioned for display during their rare moments of attractiveness. If HTs were viable candidates for mixed borders, I'm sure her people could make them work.

But honestly, mixing most HTs with OGRs is like having a climate-controlled fur closet installed, then hanging that pink acrylic faux-fox Rive Gauche bolero jacket in there with the Sables, Tanukis, and Chinchillas. The proximity benefits neither 'faux' nor 'vrai'.

plan9, your comments are so right-on and I love the analogy to the "fur closet". For me (forgive me, those who love HT's) hybrid teas are an aberration that have no place in the garden with the honorable exception of some very old ones that behave more like tea roses. Since I don't spray that's another good reason to refuse them entry to my garden.

Masha, please note that roses "by themselves" are boring unless they're huge. I have no place where they're sitting in lonely splendor; they always have something non-rose near them. I can't believe I bought minis either since I didn't want any more modern roses. But, there are some cunning enablers on this forum, and how can you say no to five roses for less than $35, shipping and handling included?

Ingrid

I'm new to this website so I don't understand some of the lingo. Just what is an HT or an OGR?

HT - hybrid tea
OGR - Old Garden Rose - like teas, chinas, bourbons, hybrid perpetuals, etc.

Ingrid-
I've tried lots of the old hybrid teas which are first generation descendants of teas... Most behave true to their HT label. Which old HTs have you found have tea or china habits?

Thank you, Ingrid, for the thumbs-up. And I agree with you that roses seldom are attractive without companion plants.

Companion plants are great and I'd certainly like to have more of them but for those of us who garden with the limited space of a city lot and limited sun it's mostly roses roses and more roses because they're what I love best. My front yard in front of the fence is all Narcissus because the gophers and deer won't eat them, but behind the fence it's mostly roses and whatever self seeding annuals like forget me nots and perennials like Geranium oxonianum survive the ever hungry gophers. I know Vita Sackville West or Gertrude Jeckyll would cry over my garden design or lack of it as I mostly let nature and budget rule but I love every blossom that I get from the roses and I really don't have eyes for much else. And yes, a few HTs and Austins are allowed to creep in amongst the OGRs if they smell good.

Diane