Master Gardeners of Lubbock

Accentuate the Positive

By Liz Smitten, Certified Master Gardener

Originally printed in the Arboretum Newsletter, 2004

When I look around my garden with its variety of perennials, shrubs, grasses, vines, and trees, I realize that the plants which have the most prominence and give me a sense that I really do have a garden, rather than just a yard, are the roses. I confess that the old English roses and hybrid musks, the shrubs and polyanthas, have a place in my heart that modern hybrid tea roses can never displace. I know that the hybrid teas, whether a single rose or a cut bouquet, makes a splendid show, but I have never liked cut flowers. I prefer my flowers to be alive in the garden, rather than dead on the dining room table, and the jumbled mixture of different types of roses forms the basis for developing my own living bouquets.

Most of my roses are grown in dedicated beds rather than scattered throughout the garden. This simplifies their care, making it easier to feed and water, to deadhead and shape, to admire and compare, and to concentrate their various scents on a summer day. However, roses are like a young woman with a beautiful face and figure but with spindly legs, and when roses are not grown in mixed borders, this flaw is more obvious. I have found that by sowing annuals and planting bulbs around the base of the rose bushes, I can hide their less attractive lower limbs and also create wonderful living flower arrangements.

Three of my favorite annuals to intersperse with the roses are white alyssum, any of the shorter growing nicotianas, and the ‘White Cloud’ larkspur. All of these have delicate flowers and leaves; the fragrance of the alyssum and nicotiana mixed with the scent of the roses creates an exquisite perfume, and, most important to me, all are self-sowing, so I don’t have to tangle with rose thorns to replant them every year. Alyssum and nicotiana are familiar to most gardeners in this area, as is the more common upright form of larkspur, or annual delphinium as it is sometimes called. ‘White Cloud’ larkspur has a more delicate, branching and billowy habit, and the blooms are single, rather than the double we see more often on the upright pastel larkspurs. I have not been able to find this seed locally, but it is available from a number of specialty seed catalogs, which also offer a cultivar called ‘Blue Cloud’. Everyone knows that clouds aren’t blue, and I am not inclined to try this in the rose beds, but in spite of its name, I think ‘Blue Cloud’ could happily find a home in another part of my garden.

With the white alyssum as a base for my bouquet, I love to add some of the smaller spring and summer bulbs, with shorter stems and soft flower forms. Iris reticulata with violet, blue, yellow or purple flowers, blooms early in the spring and so does not clash with the color of the roses. It is low growing and does best at the front of the rose bed. The double narcissus, such as the cultivars ‘White Cheerfulness’, ‘Yellow Cheerfulness’, and ‘Snowbird’ also provide spring bloom at the front of the beds. The shorter Asiatic lilies, which mimic the color of the roses and colonize freely, are another favorite, blooming in late spring to early summer in our climate. The bulbs are storing food for next year long after they have finished blooming, so I keep the leaves until they turn yellow and then pull them gently out. By summer the alyssum, nicotiana and ‘White Cloud’ larkspur are in full glory, continuing into the fall. I let the these plants set seed, cut the alyssum to the ground and pull the nicotiana and larkspur, saving any seeds I want for other parts of the garden, or to share with friends and fellow gardeners.

For more gardening information in Lubbock, visit the Lubbock Garden Clubs site.