Check out Green Ice--a mini that sprawls and sprawls quite thickly. It is white with occasional faint flush of green (depending on the weather). Good disease resistance. Grows maybe 1.5 ft tall.

Kate

I'm not sure what you're looking for but I have Amber Flower Carpet. It's a very healthy rose, blooms a lot and is attractive in a cottage garden/natural garden sort of way. I'm not sure why they chose the name "Carpet" since the rose is 3-4 ft. high for me and a little wider than that. This suits me but it might not suit you.

If you like white, what about Gourmet Popcorn? I don't think there could be an easier rose on the planet. I treat it like a small shrub and it's in partial shade, yet this rose is always healthy, growing and blooming.

BTW, I have somehow ended up with a collection of what I call "Little White Roses". They are small white flowered, long blooming polyanthas and minis, some double, some single, some so full they are pompoms. I didn't know what else to do with them so I put some of them together in a small bed behind our shed where I lost lilies after last winter. I absolutely love it! They are almost carefree, go nicely with each other and the other perennials and really deliver on charm and blooms. They'd look delightful with lavender. Just a thought.

How are you going to balance Lavender's demand for dryness in our climate with roses' demand for wetness? Also plan for someway to keep the birdbath vertical as the very friable lavender soil shifts.

Borderer rose is a lovely full sized rose that stays low and I've grown it successfully here for six years without spray.

Dublin , do your green ice roses get the pink tinge I see on help me find ? If so I may really enjoy that rose . I also like the popcorn rose , and will consider that . I guess white seems like a good choice , as I will have a million pink roses nearby ! :) kes , feel free to show us your bed ! I know I'd love to see it . I really love the poly the fairy rose , but it will get too tall .
Ann , do you think the lavender will survive just fine if I only water the ring of roses regularly ? That was my plan . I see a lot of lavender in landscapes with knock outs that look ok so I thought it worked. Do you have another suggestion? I plan on using cat mint a lot in other areas and I can't think of another plant to use.
Also ann since we are neighbors of sorts , id love to hear roses that do well for you that you reccomend ! And if you have pics of your garden id love to see what you have done .

Look up 'Little White Pet' - blooms stay perfect, small & white. Bushes stay 1 1/2 ft tall & bushy. Stays healthy here without any spraying.

Jackie

Lily, I am in a different zone but my Green Ice has a pink tinge to it when the blooms first open, and then they are usually mostly white and as they get older they turn that green color.

It's a really lovely rose - I recommend it! :)

There is a way you might be able to get away with planting roses and lavender together and keeping both happy. First, plant the roses where you want them to be, deeply in the native soil. Then raise the bed a few inches, using a thick layer of well-draining soil amendments. Plant the lavender shallowly in the top layer.

This is something I've noticed happening in my new bed. I planted the roses in the ground last year, then added about six inches of mulch. I later worked in some composted manure, and lots of organic fertilizer, to prepare the bed for planting perennials this year. My plan was for the mulch to form the bulk of a new soil layer, and smaller-particle amendments added on top would filter down with every rain. Now I realize this will take longer than I anticipated.

I notice that the top three inches don't retain much moisture, but everything below that will stay moist. This was actually a problem for me, since it meant that very few of the seeds I sowed in there survived. Next year, I'll have to add something along the lines of "Mel's Mix" across the top to retain moisture and (hopefully) allow seeds to germinate and grow when I try again next Spring. It also meant many of the perennials I planted this year had a hard time keeping moist without supplemental water. Gradually, their roots went deeper and they're fine now.

So perhaps for you, maintaining a thick dry layer on top of the bed will keep your roses moist, and at the same time leave a "high and dry" area for planting your lavender.

:-)

~Christopher

My Green Ice occasionally picks up a slight apricot pink flush, but it is mostly white with an occasional green flush. Remember that one of the virtues of Green Ice is that it sprawls sideways--filling in the "holes."

Gourmet Popcorn is a cutie of a mini-rose, but mine is more of a vertical plant--maybe 2 ft tall and less than a foot wide. Of course, that may be partly because it is tucked in rather closely with a big floribunda on either side of it--so maybe it is stretching up trying to get more room and sun. Who knows?

Kate

I have planted Drift roses. I am enjoying them very much. I also have lavender planted. I had to amend the soil to work around our clay soil.

I have Appleblossom Flower carpet and it's very healthy for me. It does bloom in decided flushes though so sometimes there is no bloom on it at all.

You might think about one of the more compact polyanthas too. They're always pretty good bloomers.

I also have Softee which is a really a great bloomer and always spot free for me.

What about "the fairy"? Very lush, very healthy, covered in blooms and low growing here like ground cover. May be different in your zone, but despite its ubiquity it really does have a certain charm.

Can I just interject a reminder as someone who had such a set up once upon a time? Make sure you have a way through those roses to get to the bird bath for cleaning and refilling. In my case, it was a twice daily necessity in high summer because it was such a popular place with the local birds and I soon removed several roses to make a path and then more to balance out that "path" so it didn't appear lopsided. You could save yourself that "re-do" by planning ahead.
And as to the lavender ring right under the birdbath, I don't know as the lavender would appreciate all that extra water being dumped on it when you tip the birdbath to drain out the dirty water...might be one of those ideas that is better in concept than in practice. JMO. Perhaps a ring of Campanula "Blue Clips" or a similar low growing perennial would be more practical and just as lovely?

Thank you everyone! I do believe I will rethink this plan. Not only would I be stepping over roses but the bees on lavender or whatever plant may be something to be cautious of. Back to the drawing board!
Christopher , I appreciate your posting. It is great to learn from others experiences!
Ninkasi, I have had and adored the fairy rose! I'll be growing it again, but it is thorny and gets big here. I had it under a bird feeder and it was perfect to keep the neighbors cat away. One of my favorite roses!
Anne, Carrie and seil, thanks for your input! I will definitely use stepping stones if I decide to do it. Thanks everyone! :)

Any idea where I could buy flower carpet roses. Three years ago I got 4 of them at Walmart. I lost the amber and pink due to RRV. I loved the amber, was a prolific bloomer. I want to get an Amber and pink splash flower carpet roses. Could not find in any garden centers here around Cleveland. Could some one let me know where to get them.
Thanks, Madri

I think the Oso-easy roses look intriguing. The other day at a nursery I was tempted to buy 'Honey Bun', which I saw displayed with white lantanas (I think) and other low white annuals (in pots), and it was really beautiful. It's a pastel cream with flushes of apricot.

I think birds might trample plantings around their feeders, though. Or even eat the flowers. They eat the pansies in my front yard in early spring, to my great frustration and dismay. At first I thought it was slugs, till I caught them at it.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:302520}}