One thing you might consider is putting narrow upright plants (columnar juniper, nandina domestica) in the back and roses with a trailing habit (Vineyard, Purple Chariot, Weeping China Doll) in front. You could intersperse the roses with some other trailing plants that would hang down even further and cover more of that high wall. The stone is quite handsome and I think it could be a beautiful feature. If the ground-level bed gets enough sun I'd plant some gorgeous tea roses (not hybrid teas) all down that row. Le Vesuve is great, loves the heat, blooms a lot, lovely color, and there are many others. They're much tougher than hybrid teas and have a beautiful, shrubby character with lots of bloom.

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll definitely have to check out Le Vesuve. How tall does it get? I gave up on HT's a long time ago and I much prefer roses with pretty rosebushes now, so it sound perfect. The roses on my list right now are SDLM, Kronprincessin Viktoria,and Thomas Affleck. These will probably go in the lower bed. I'm also thinking about an umbrella trellis and planting Climbing Pinkie on it.

Laurie

I have a bed like that!

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I thought I was the only one stuck with such a thing.

It's 42' tall and with another retaining wall behind it 10' tall. I had a dozen HTs in there ('Traviata') and they looked pretty bad most of the time--the "bare knees" part of the plant was right at eye level and you could only see the flowers from below...not nice. Pulled them all out...then took the above photo...

I switched to a half dozen petite Austins ('Jubilee Celebration') and they look somewhat better, but still not all that great. Too dark to get a picture now.

I'm thinking I'll put a row of identical Agaves in there eventually. Somehow, all that flat wall begs for something with a more architectural or structured shape than a rose.

Ingrid's idea of alternating something tall and narrow with something drapey might work well. I would avoid Nandina though because it gets the same "bare knees" that roses get.

You still need some height in that bed, otherwise it will be a big beige wall with a stripe of green in the middle (which is kind of what I have with 'Jubilee Celebration' in there right now.

I'll try to get a picture tomorrow.

Consider miniature roses. Many stay short to 18 inches or so, but spread out to cover a considerable area.

I second the suggestion to use roses that drape. Red Cascade comes to mind. Many hybrid musks and climbers don't mind growing downward ... Cornelia, Daphne, Renae, Alba Meideland may be good choices.

Connie

Wow, hoov, that's a doosey. Were you able to get to the roses to deadhead? The roses won't bloom as well if I don't deadhead, will they? I had Traviata for a while and it was such a gorgeous rose, but than I decided I wanted pretty rosebushes, not just pretty roses so out it went.

I don't spray, so anything I put there has to be healthy.

Karl - I was really hoping to have some bigger blooms than what minatures have, but that may be my best bet. I think the Peach Drift I bought the other day is probably considered a minature. There's also one called sweet drift which looks pretty.

Ingrid - Weeping China is one that I wondered about.

Connie - Thanks for the suggestions. I'll look those up.

Are there by any chance any trailing/weeping roses that are healthy without spraying and don't have a lot of thorns? I have a lawn service and I'm trying to be considerate of them.

I second Karl's suggestion, you need smaller, tighter bushes than smaller Austins, like certain minis, floribundas and polys. (Hoovb, I know you didn't go to Cliff's for the Mother's Day sale because it was 100 miles one way, but you might reconsider for the fall flush. Grab the DH or BFF, pack a lunch and just go on a road trip for the day. If you go out the 210, that part is smooth.) I was really inspired by Cliff's floribundas and other smaller varities and also got a new appreciation for singles that I had never had before. For example,

Daisy O (after Cliff's mom), very pretty orangy-red
Rosarian Gregg Lowery, bright yellow, with blooms that last on the bush
The Imposter
Tissue
Marie Daly
Marie Pavie
And let's not forget the chinas like White Pearl in Dragon's Mouth which is very popular here on the forum..

One's I'm waiting to see how they do but mentioned elsewhere on the forum...
Petite Perle D'Or
Petite Francoise
Compassionate Friend
Grace Abounding
Little Butterfly
International Herald Tribune

Thornless, I don't have, but a friend enjoys:
Bayse's Legacy
Pink Gate
Softee
Rugelda
1-72-1 Ralph Moore's yellow climbing mini-breeder but always in flower, very fertile, has hips

Many are **self cleaning** and of course the fungus load in your area will dictate what will do better.

Last comment, if it were me, I'd use as much variety as I could in height or even draping as suggested rather than stick with one look. For one thing, you'll get lots more chances to see what looks like and know what will shape and flower well.

Secondly, although planting a single cultivar can be stunning, it is easily spoiled if any single plant does poorly, the kid shwacks it with a basketball, not to mention (hoovb, forgive me) in certain situations looking like a crop. hoovb, I'm sure yours looked very pretty as I've enjoyed your pictures so often, however, I think that's a mistake many landscapers use with grasses, shrubs, etc.

Finally, hoovb, if you plant various succulent cultivars (which can be very pretty, my mom is into them) you'll probably be ok. But if you plant agave, I guarantee their roots will crack your wall and possibly lean it over time.

I didn't know there were self-cleaning roses. So, now is there such a rose that self cleans, is disease resistant without spraying and makes a pretty rosebush :)

Seriously, what are some of the self-cleaning roses? Are you talking about Knockouts are is there something else?

Laurie

Laurie,
I have 5 mini/minifloras right now. They are the healthiest looking of any of my roses, and they are full of foliage all the way to the ground. You cannot see the dirt under any of them. They're all first year plants, and so far none of them exceed 2 feet in height, but that could be due to my zone. Given another month or 2 of growing season, I'd estimate another foot or so of growth.

Of the 5 I have, Tabasco Cat, Renegade, and Sally Parade are "self-cleaning" for me. I don't have to use a pruner at all on them, and the spent blooms just fall off in the wind, or I can flick them off with my pinkie finger. New growth comes out from where the spent blooms were. They grow very symmetrically and don't have the leggy, lopsided tendencies of my HTs. I'm sure there must be many more minis that have this tendency; perhaps others can offer specific suggestions.

I really love the minis for the dense foliage & self-cleaning. The only drawback is that many of them lack fragrance. Oh---one more positive I forgot is that they require a lot less water.
---Laura

Here we go. See what I mean by "band of green". Not satisfying to me, but gardens are always a work in progress. Unfortunately today lots of buds but no flowers; the next flush about to start. An errant 'Wildeve' needs to be switched out with an available 'Jubilee Celebration'.

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I used a pole pruner to deadhead. It worked very well. I still use for the flowers in the back next to the wall that I can't reach otherwise.

Here is a link that might be useful: pole pruner example

Le Vesuve might easily get to 8 feet tall but many of the teas can be pruned to stay shorter. Speaking of self-cleaning, Le Vesuve does a pretty good job of that. Duchesse de Brabant is a really lovely tea that self-cleans, as does her beautiful white sport, Mme. Joseph Schwartz. Now that I think of it, The Fawn (or The Faun) is a lovely rose that has a very spreading habit and would easily hang down her beautiful salmon pink flowers from your wall.

Ingrid

Hoov - That's interesting, I've never seen a pole pruner before. The two rose bushes on the left side of the photo look a little leggy, but the ones on the right look pretty darn good.

Ingrid - The Fawn is one that I've had my eye on for awhile. You don't hear much about it though.

Laurie

Love all the suggestion. Gonna pass it on to a friend who recently moved to a place she has similar situation.

I'd be inclined to plant bamboo with creeping jenny and cascading blue senecio in that planter. It doesn't look like a promising spot for roses. I'd put climbing roses at ground level against the other wall.
Renee

well, you can use a surprising number of climbers such as clematis, thunbergias, maurandias as ground cover so I am thinking that you could actually have a really inspring mix of architectural grasses, agaves, aloes, beschornias and so on with climbers/trailers. Also, ground cover roses such as raubritter, Dick's Delight, many of the Poulsen roses, some of the polyanthas would fall over the wall rather than standing straingt up......although, in my opinion, I would not bother with roses at all here as you have the makings of a dramatic bed with either succulents, cacti. or mainly foliage plants...or you could have wall shrubs such as Fremontedendron, abutilons....or you could investigate mediterranean plants which will appreciate the sharp drainage of a high raised bed and make great use of the extra warmth from the retaining wall. I am also thinking of aromatic garigue or maquis plants such as the thymes and lavenders, cistus, salvias which will be blooming at exactly nose height. An opportunity which deserves some careful thought but I can see you are on the case.

Ah, yes! It's the perfect height for herbs! Can't tell you how much easier it is when they are in window boxes or right between shoulder & waist high.
Must-haves:
Basil, oregano, marjoram, sage, chives.
Nice to have:
Chocolate mint, spearmint, apple mint, lime thyme, honeydew melon sage, pineapple mint, parsley, coriander.

Would be great because they're all different shades of green, and some of these come in tri-color with purple leaves. All kinds of leaf shapes, and the mints, oregano, chives, and marjoram will all flower. AND you'd have them contained, so you wouldn't have to worry about them running rampant in the ground.

My following suggestions are grown in my no-spray, zone 7 garden:

My Penelope stayed low and draped well. Not sure what other�s experiences might be with this rose. Very pretty and I could see it falling over a wall in a beautiful manner. This rose dropped old petals in rain or wind so I never had to deadhead.

I had a Renae on a trellis that I always thought would be so much better used falling over a wall or over a rock. Dainty foliage and pretty blooms. Great rose. Low on thorns. Renae dropped old petals in rain or wind and also never required dead-heading.

Weeping China Doll. I am seconding that suggestion. No dead-heading required. Great, full foliage--no bare legs.

A small rose that is almost evergreen in zone 7 is Borderer. Sold by Roses Unlimited this rose blooms like mad and requires no care. I never have to dead-head this rose. I am really impressed with my 2 yr old specimens. You could even do a row of these...it would be very pretty.

Another low growing beauty is Green Ice. This rose stays low and spreads out in a beautiful manner. I never have bothered to take care of it...yet it rewards me endlessly.

Ronda

With a tall bed like that, it would seem to be difficult to reach it to give all the rose care needed for many roses. I actually liked the grasses in the first photo. Seems you would need some taller things to give interest, and textures/different greens would be good. An OGR rose I have really liked this year is Maman Cochet - a $5 sale bin find. I too am from Texas and it gets plenty hot in the summer tho it looks like you have a sprinkler systerm there. I have used grasses with great success in some of my beds....Go to a nursery [or if you are near Blue Moon Gardens near Tyler, by all means GO!] Get ideas, look at plants, ask garden center's opinions. Sky pencils are good plants, stay green, are tall and cylindrical...chartruese potatoe vines are a must in the summer - they would trail and look gorgeous there along with hot pink periwinkles, asparagus fern is good, trails, handles the heat just great and comes back in the spring. To balance, I have read that you should divide long beds into sections and repeat the same plants in each section. Some dont like them, but the double Knockout roses never stop blooming, always look good, a great spot of color. I have had good luck self sowing taller zinnias - they come up fast, grow and bloom and love sun. In spring.....larkspur is divine[lavenders, reseeds itself and comes back each year], and sowing poppy seeds in November will reap tall, blooming beauties in spring and they will come up every year. Edging in summer you could use periwinkles - they cant be beat, or lantana can weep and is perennial. Unless you have a gardner, I would think it would be hard to crawl up there and work on the plants every day or two, so a lush planting that could take care of itself might be the better option. I really like it - its a beautiful look....getting ideas and putting lots of thought into it will reap big benefits - I really like it! Also...some lighting for night enjoyment that could bounce off the grasses, shrubs would be lovely. Good luck!
Judith

I have only one small suggestion,... maybe try looking into the rose "Sweet Chariot" ? It's reportedly self-cleaning and is a low rose (about 3 feet) but will spread to about 5 wide and has a cascading habit (it's often recommended for hanging baskets). Blooms a lot, fragrant and sets hips. :)

Good luck! I'm going to go stare at Hoovb's blog some more while I caffienate. XD

Thanks, Ronda. Borderer is actually on my list! The only thing I'm worried about with W China Doll is it getting too big. There's a picture on HMF where it looks huge, but I don't know if that's how it grows for most people. I'm not familiar with Penelope, so I'll check it out.

aimeekitty - I had Sweet Chariot at my last house and loved the blooms on it, but it lost alot of it's leaves when I stopped spraying. Otherwise, the growth habit would be perfect.

alameda - I keep telling myself not to get carried away with the roses because I need to use a variety of other plants including evergreens, but then I get sucked in with my love for roses and don't know when to say enough is enough :) I actually picked up some books from the library on perennials and I'm trying to get ideas from that. The thought of putting a plain shrub somewhere where I could put something that blooms is so hard for me, but I know the overall effect would be much prettier. I didn't like the particular grass I had, but I found one called Hameln that I love, so it will probably go somewhere in my yard. Since you're in Texas also, have you grown dianthus? I really liked the mounded look of it and wondered how it does here (DFW). I thought all ferns were for the shade. Does asparagus fern do okay in the sun?

Laurie

Here asparagus fern is really invasive and hard to get rid of. It reseeds agressively and grows back from small bits of root. Might be different in your climate, though, where you get frosts.

The more I garden the more I appreciate green shrubs, they have their own considerable beauty, they truly do.

I had Asparagus fern last year & loved it, but it's an annual and goes kaput as soon as temps cool off for fall. It needs heat & full sun to be truly green, lush, and gorgeous. It amazes me how some things that I wish would come back in my zone are absolutely invasive nightmares elsewhere. Another example---lantana. Love it, but hate buying it every year.

see, you have a grass already - we perennial lovers will break you down. In heat, there are some wonderful foliage plants such as astelia and artemisia, euphorbias, aloes, all of which will look lovely with hameln (a pennisetum, right?) Now have a look at some of the stipas - the thing with grasses is, they have movement. They also go rather well with some of the less formal, wilder roses, especially some of the species roses or perhaps something like Daisy Hill, a macrantha hybrid (i think) Throw in some other airy and scanted perennials such as (my fave, this year) nicotiana suaveolens, maybe a knautia, some bulbs .....you can actually have it all as you can plant a whole lot denser in a raised bed so stuff them in and go for texture rather than colour, maybe.....whatever, you fancy.