I had a distinct feeling that GJ never grew roses with particular companion plants - instead, she grew them as singular specimens in a variety of ways - swags, climbers, pegged down, fountains etc etc. Anyway, I do have 'Roses for English Gardens' to hand and there is not one mention of lavandula in the index.

And rightly too since roses thrive in clay with plentiful irrigation whereas a typical maquis plant such as lavender would be most unhappy indeed. I certainly don't grow these in combination...although I have grown nepeta and various creeping campanulas as an understorey to roses (which are a bit more forgiving than lavender). Tbh, Lin, I rarely grow roses with ground covering plants - I prefer to mulch underneath and have much taller perennials such as foxgloves, anemones, tall campanulas, belladonna delphiniums, even verbascums and annuals, poking up between the (unruly) roses bushes. Have never managed to incorporate mine in a mixed border unless they are small ground covering roses such as the County series ('Surrey, Sussex et al...or the smaller polys and floribundas of which I grow few.

Hi there

@ Campanula: thanks for checking in "Roses for English gardens"

personally I think La& Ro is a very bad companion combo, but the best garden lore ever, as every lanscaper looks shell shocked if I point out that it is a bad combination (for the Lavender or the rose...)

and combining the more civilized Polyantha hybrids is tricky, still fiddeling and testing... (and too little space for species roses)

@ mad gallica: thanks or the story about those potpourrie, who`d have thought, this stuff has certainly come a long way, but sadly, no resemblence with the present day perfume-scented artificial stuff, those real rose petals and LAvender. Perhaps a good christmas gift for 2019.

I did do a quick Amazon search, and while I avoid ordering stuff from them (with the bad employment conditions and stress in those ware houses) I do buy ebooks.

and lo and behold, they stock some old Jekyll-books, the optics are like that of a very cheap and bad paper back, but the text is ok, and I won`t complain if a volume costs less than 2 bucks.

So, a new direction to search into, thanks again,

bye, Lin

Unless they are in modern editions, all (or almost all) books that Jekyll published are in public domain. You can find them for free at some good digital libraries: www.biodiversitylibrary.org and www.hathitrust.org. At HathiTrust, if you select "full view," it will give the list of all her books with expired copyrights.

I have grown both rugosas and the little pimpinellifolias/spinossissimas (Double White, Falkland, Marbled pink etc.) in my sandy. free draining soil, with lavenders and idigoferas in the same areas, if not exactly chosen as companions...and I suspect quite a few species roses will do well with lavenders, rosemary et al. Amazingly, not a single rose was stressed by this past summer of drought (although they didn't bloom either). Their waxy cuticles and deep taproots enabled them to ride out days and days of torrid heat and not a drop of irrigation. I think the soil conditions have at least as much bearing as climate...and as ever in horticulture, there are few hard and fast rules.

"personally I think La& Ro is a very bad companion combo, but the best garden lore ever, as every lanscaper looks shell shocked if I point out that it is a bad combination (for the Lavender or the rose...)"

Most anyone with a decent horticultural background will agree that these two plants are not good in combo - they want very different growing conditions. And by that I am referring to the typical heavily hybridized roses most grow.....species roses IME are vastly more tolerant of less than perfectly favorable conditions. Some landscapers may have that background.....others not so much :-))