It really depends on what types of roses you plan on using. "Planting in groups" is done when using small roses, or bush-type (i.e. Hybrid Tea, Floribunda, or Grandiflora) roses. The result is a larger swath of something, or the illusion of one large shrub. Spacing will depend on the variety and its expected size in your growing conditions -- including how big you'll allow. But another option is to choose roses which get big enough on their own to allow for planting individually. If you are aiming for variety, planting in groups will reduce the total possible number of varieties you can use since you're using multiples of each.

:-)

~Christopher

It totally depends on what kind of roses you will be planting. If you can post a picture of part of the wall & bed, and tell us what the exposure is (South, West, etc), and whether or not it will get lots of sun most of the day, I am sure folks on here will have enough info to help you.

Also, do you want it to look like a hedge, or like groups of roses separated by other plants, or just space? How tall do you wan the roses to be?

I cannot give you any specific advice, because our climate is so much warmer, but hopefully if you post more info, someone will be able to.

Jackie

Christopher - Ha! Our posts hit simultaneously, and look at the first sentence in both - great minds think alike!

Jackie

I'm with Chris and Jacqueline, it all depends on what you are trying to achieve.

I planted my front yard up with layers of roses and edged the swath with drift roses and poinsettias. The layers include a row of Belinda's Dream with Iceberg, then a row of Blue Girl with Medallion, followed by a third row of Pope John Paul II and Pinata, and finally the row of drift roses with poinsettias to edge everything out. I spaced them out pretty compactly because our roses in SF don't get that deep bushy growth that you find in northern climates (they tend to naturally thin out when they get too bushy by getting black spot). Many here would recommend spacing the roses no less than three feet apart, stem to stem, but it really depends on the variety and, again, the effect you are going for. Many would also not suggest putting more than two rows back to back, as this lessens access for proper cultural practices. Sun is another consideration that must be taken into effect.

I think if you share a picture of what you're starting to work with and give us a general color scheme of what you want, a lot of us will chime in with suggestions.

Good luck!

Adrian.

Here's a pic from Facebook that I just came across:

When you plant groupings of the same kinds of plants close together within the grouping these are called drifts. In this case the drift is the unit instead of an individual shrub - you plant the roses within the unit much closer together than if there was one plant of this kind and then one of that kind, on through the border or bed.

The purpose of planting in drifts is to get an appearance of flow and movement, in preference to the static or spotty feeling generated by plantings consisting entirely of one each of each kind of plant. (The term "tombstone planting" has been used for the common habit of planting individual, spaced out shrubs with no other plants between them, so that they look like tombstones in a graveyard - all the more so if the shrubs are then sheared into dense, stone-like shapes).

A problem with the oft repeated recommendation of planting in 3s is that results in an rigidly anchored, geometric configuration - you can actually produce a more graceful shape with a grouping of 4 plants, for instance. Also if all the drifts in a bed are the same shape (particularly a stiff one like triangles of 3 plants have) then you start to get almost the same rigidity as if there was just one plant of each kind

You need to find a rose grower or a rose garden/rose society in your area to get good help on spacing your roses. Someone above stated the 3' spacing rule which is commonly seen in rose literature for HT's....in my z4 area I space HT's 16" apart because of major winter cane die back & a short growing season. Another example of zone difference is 'Knock Out'...in my area it rarely gets more than 2' tall but when I visited family in Atlanta, I saw 'K O' roses 6't x 4'w.

It depends on the look you are going for... Excellent advice from everyone here. I have found that I prefer pale roses... Here is my bed of JOHANN STRAUSS. I have 10 roses in this space. I live in zone 4, so these winter kill to the ground. They get to be 36 inches tall over the season with 3 huge flushes of bloom. They are traffic stoppers even though they are pale roses against a pale house.

In my back yard, I have PERDITA, EVELYN, AND TEASING GEORGIA all together. They are all pale roses, but with different blooms. However, I have 3 very bright pink unamed roses in a bed close to them for a huge pop of color. It makes my back yard look very alive. It's all in the look you want. If you don't get it right the first time, by all means shovel them out and try again! :)

I feel like this goes against everything I have ever read, and it makes me want to plant all my roses closer together.

I really love your 2013 version of your rose bed, Ameri! Even though your style is totally opposite of mine... It makes me want to stop and take a stroll through your garden. Lovely!!!

I need to add that I can get away with planting my JOHANN STRAUSS roses 1 foot apart because I live in zone 4. We really don't get much blackspot or any other diseases. The only thing I deal with is rose slugs, so I don't need to have a lot of air circulation between roses to keep them healthy.

The other thing I do is cut the roses off at ground level at the end of the season, grind up the canes, and put them over the roses. They seem to thrive on this treatment and I know it is really forbidden in warmer climates because of diseases. So placement also depends on the zone you are in and the diseases you deal with as well.

You're in the right zone to try planting in drifts in your 5 foot bed. In my zone even a midsize floribunda can quickly go to 4 feet wide or more, so for group planting the bed would need to be as much as 8-10 feet wide.

We've had great success here in coastal SE Virginia with Drift roses planted this way but we have to keep cutting back all season to keep them the right size, and we've found that it is a challenge to apply our dry organics (Mills Magic or Plant Tone) with so little space between plants.

I hope others in your zone can recommend roses that are hardy in your area so you don't develop "holes" here and there from die-out.

Barbara, thank you for mentioning Drift roses!!! I checked them out and they are exactly what I have been looking for!!!! I didn't know they existed! :)

Yes, make sure to only use roses which are hardy in your zone, and whose size you can predict (only way to do that is get advice from people who grow them in your zone, or see them growing somewhere nearby).

I planted our 60'long by 6 ft wide bed years ago. Had no idea what I was doing, but I wanted about 40 feet of it to be all white roses, as we had yellow daisy ground cover and multicolored roses on the other side of the sidewalk. So, I ordered three different kinds of white "ground cover" roses (which were supposed to stay VERY SHORT, and planted them alternately. Well, the one which really did stay short sort of died. The other two turned into large bushes (zone 9 here - I should have known they would get big - everything does), which are still going strong 20 years later. I do like them, and the spaces where the other one died make places for people to get out of their cars. Just saying you never really know how things will turn out - pic below.

Jackie

Jackie, That setting looks like the perfect mistake to me. Absolutely gorgeous!! I want to take a stroll there.

Thanks, Rebecca - much of my garden was "designed" by mistakes! I do not tend to correct the mistakes afterwards - I let the roses do what they want to do. Result is not neat or tidy or very color coordinated, but I like it.

Jackie

Looks beautiful Jackie!

Rose hedges or mass plantings is something I've always wanted to do. I hesitate every spring because I usually would like to know how they behave in my environment. I tend to buy one first and see how it does. When it is time to decide which is a good rose to mass plant, something new comes up and I want to try that one as well. In the end, I can't do it because of my rose hoarding problems wanting to get everything and a budget. Of course there is the digging as well, lol. Having said that I agree with other posters on what you are trying to achieve. David Austin for example suggest a planting of threes for his roses if you got the space so it will look like a bigger shrub of roses as they grow together and that there is a continuous bloom of flowers as well.

I find that mass plantings is very eye catching at first but it can be boring for me as well. If I ever mass plant any rose, I would choose one that is either bi or multi-coloured or has various shades on the plant. I would find a variety of colours more interesting than just a hedge of the same flat colours. It is more harmonious but a bit boring.

Some roses grow awkwardly and really need to be planted closely in groups, otherwise they look like bizarre statues. Three that come to the top of my head are Radio Times, Topaz Jewel, Papa Meilland. When planted together, they look like a mass instead of wierdly shaped gawky scarecrows.