I'm not sure where sunset zone 9 is. Must be in the foothills? or far northern CA. SF area is zones 14-17 so colder than there, which is where I used to live. White alyssum self seeds normally. People use that a lot around roses in NorCal, along with CA poppies. Lobelia is good too in places where summer is not too hot for them to take full sun. Ajuga may not take the summer sun, plus the roots are pretty invasive for around roses. Ditto for any of the vincas, not good companions. Dianthus and hardy geraniums will certainly take the summer sun. Dianthus works well here, but down there I remember it being prone to root rot and being short lived. Some geraniums can be too invasive for roses, with thick dense shallow root mats similar to vinca and ajuga. Stachys can be nice where it's off to the side, not getting constant water. Bowles Mauve wallflower will get too tall where you are, and it's very short lived. The african daisies will be good though, also the nemophila, erigeron, helianthemum and lithodora. Phlox won't do well in your area probably. I remember it being prone to root rot. Does well up here in cooler summers with extremely well drained soil. I remember using a lot of erigeron karvinskianus with roses - it was called Santa Barbara daisy in the SF area. For some reason no one grows it around here. I've tried thymes around roses, but they root too tightly and shallowly to work well. You can't cultivate through them to work in fertilizer. I have used sedums in some spots with mini roses, but the sedums turned out to be too invasive! not bothered by the water, but then I was using sedums native to the Olympic Mtns. Aphid attractors - not all aphids are created the same. Those that attack roses tend to be pretty specific to roses and the stone fruit trees they overwinter on, like plums. I don't believe that the aphids attracted to that list of herbaceous plants in the list above will also attack roses. I never liked the catmint everyone planted with their roses in the SF area. Got too big and rangy and woody. But, if there's a reliably low cultivar like people are posting, that would be worth trying.

Dealing in any other way than credit card, paypal and the like is prohibitively expensive unless we are talking about very large orders. To give an example, my bank is asking for a euro 50 fee for the transfer of amounts up to 500 euros or so...Three roses which is a reasonable amount will thus cost at the minimum 45+15+50 euros... I have had experience exchanging emails in english with Le Roseraie du Desert and they have been very helpful and easy to talk to (they are Americans if I understand correctly). They accept paypal I gather. I was about to order from them when I needed to be hospitalized last year. Last time I checked Bierkreek the only payment method available was bank transfer or cash which prohibited me from dealing with them. I don't know if this has changed but I doubt it. Additionally you had to email them your request, and they would come back with availability and the shipping costs quote. Not very efficient I think. I've had very bad experience with a couple of german nurseries which never responded to my emails. For one of them I left a bad review in HMF and discovered I was not the only one with such a bad experience. What I like to do is go online to an english language site, put a few roses in my shopping basket, check out, pay with my credit card both the rose price and the shipping cost, receive a confirmation email and be done with it. Anything more complicated than this is a hassle. Contact with the nursery should only be needed if one needs to clarify something or resolve a problem, not for a business as usual order. If contact is needed I expect this to be conducted promptly by email and in english, not because I happen to speak the language but because it is the de facto lingua franca for international commerce. I don't expect to have to use a translator nor jump through the machine translation hoops. So if anybody has any recommendations for such nurseries not in the UK with a good selection of OGR's and the like and which will ship across the EU, they are welcome. PS. Bierkreek seem to be preparing a proper e-commerce site. When they have it ready I will be pleased to try it. PS2. The Lens nursery was mentioned. Below the link to their terms and conditions. Please note, on top of the payment method problem and uknown (and possibly very steep shipping costs judging from their costs for shipping to nearby places like the UK and Germany), their disclaimers about shipping and state of plants on arrival. This is what I call bad business practices and I would never buy from them. Lens nursery (Belgium) terms & conditions

Yeah they are weird but kind of cool too. Assuming it isn't chronically wet soil they are a sign of healthy soil. Dave

when i did seeds.. i learned to sterilize all media... to avoid issues like this ... and frankly.. it really didnt matter what the bag claimed: http://www.coopext.colostate.edu/4DMG/Soil/sterile.htm trees are very different than say.. veg OR HOUSEPLANTS ..... especially in regard to media .... have you researched this ... or did you just buy what was available ... it might not be imperative at the seed sprouting stage ... but it can become very important in the long run .... most trees like a sip a water.. and then near total drainage ... and near drying in between those sips ... a media that retain too much water can be A DETRIMENT .. and a lot of MG stuff stays to wet for such [mostly because its sold for veg and houseplant uses] there is a tree forum.. and we have a few peeps who do this particular type of thing ... and i dont mean grow mushrooms.. lol ... you might also try the fruit forum .... KEN