Been looking at the weeds that grow so well to see if any would work as ground cover. These were left as a trail.
And Buckminster. http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/imagenes_ciencia2/conscioussociopol23_03_small.jpg
My concerns about using any weed as a groundcover, except on the side of a highway:
- If it grows that well, then it is invasive and could spread to the rest of your lawn and garden.
- It will compete with the roses for food and water.
- Depending on the weed, it may act as a vector for certain diseases and/or for destructive insects. I have learned this the hard way. In fact, this topic could make a great newsletter article.
- You still can’t prevent other weeds from seeding under and between the weed that you are using as a groundcover. So you still will need to weed.
Have you identified the name of this weed, and looked it up?
How tall does it get? What insects or diseases does it attract?
I do not mean to rain on your parade, you are thinking outside the box. If you want an attractive underplanting for your roses to hide defoliated stems due to black spot, then lavender is a great choice. So is nepeta mussinii (catmint) if you don’t mind the bees. Both of these perennials have beautiful blue flowers and once established, are pretty easy to grow. They are often used in fancy British gardens as rose underplantings. But I would only plant them immediately in front of the rose bush, not throughout the rose bed.
Cathy
Central NJ, zone 7a
Don’t worry about it. Anything not sown is a weed. They look like something from a whole food store and taste sweet.
Just part of the living soil concept.
The vast majority of seedlings in this bed have horizontal resistance so the normal crud is not a problem.
Neil
I allow the Petty Spurge to “under plant” my roses. I’ve noticed the soil under that “weed” is actually damper than it is when I keep it out of the beds. It doesn’t get to tall, so it doesn’t shade things out and it prevents the blamed rabbits from gnawing off the basals, which they do when I don’t allow the weed to flourish. It rusts in late summer, with a different strain of rust that affects the roses and if I don’t pay attention to it, they collapse under their own weight, re seeding and becoming part of the “mulch” until they are rapidly replaced with a new crop, much like alyssum does. There seems to be a neurotic obsession for under planting roses here and on the garden forums. As if seeing “dirt” is so awfully offensive, everything imaginable is suggested to cover it. Personally, I prefer just an organic mulch with nothing else growing among the roses, but it’s a sterile, barren look for many. When I must, I use annuals in other gardens, but given my “druthers”, I’d druther not plant anything around them. Clean up is a bear, resulting in much blood loss and fertilizing is a royal pain to do properly. But, when someone else is buying your time, you give them the closest to what they want as you can.
Hello everybody,
very interesting subject: we’re working with perennial to cover the soil under our roses. For us is of primary importance because our soil is heavy clay and if not covered with plant, it become very soon a dead soil.
Some of the plant we use are: (sorry for using only scientific names, but really have no clue about english names) vinca minor, stackys lanata, geranium (the perennial one, not the pelargonium type) and many others (right now i forgot the name, sorry).
We’ve seen an increment of blackspot and rust if we use Vinca major, so this is not a good plant, really is a infestation vehicle.
Kim, we observed an increase in water need on a barren soil under the rose and a progressive “desertification” of soil if we don’t use a green cover (made of plants).
I recall perfectly the park in Stradford upon Avon, England, with the perfectly clean soil under the roses :), but here is nearly impossible to achieve.
Riccardo, vinca minor or major are horribly invasive and will choke out most vegetation in this climate. It is immortal and will rob every drop of water from every other plant around it. I battle geranium incanum in one garden. It germinates from seed extremely easily and grows about a foot a week in the heat we’re currently enduring. I now have it in the moister spots in my garden from its hitching a ride home on my shoes and clothing. A very pretty perennial and wonderful where you want nothing else to grow as it prevents air and light from getting to the bud unions of the roses, so I must yank it out regularly. Forget Me Nots (myosotis) are another which self seeds prolifically and must be pulled out regularly, and which also hitch hikes home on my clothing. Fortunately, there is insufficient water here for it to endure. Lamb’s Ears (stachys byzantina) is a real mess! The foliage is too fragile, dense and snail ridden to use for anything other than preventing any other plant to grow. Around roses, it’s horrific. The plant tissue adheres to the rose prickles when removed from the crown areas and requires much time and labor to clean out. The best course in hot, arid environments in my experience is a good, organic mulch, whether it’s horse manure or a well made compost. It suppresses weeds, amends soil, retains moisture, and makes removal of seedlings germinating in the area quite easy. It doesn’t foster insect growth, nor does it increase transpiration of moisture, resulting in increased disease issues, as under planting with other plants does. It doesn’t have to be removed annually, but simply added to as it digests and incorporates into the soil. I actually use all the garden trimmings, including the rose prunings, run though my electric shredder, as “mulch” around the roses and anywhere else I am fortunate enough to have sufficient shredded material to use.
I agree with Roseseek. I do not underplant my roses with anything. They have enough competition from the Oriental Lilies and daylilies that I also grow in my flower garden.
The best rose beds I have ever seen from Rose Society members and botanical gardens were beds that had no other plants growing except for the roses.
And weeding is a fact of life in almost any garden. Weeding chores cannot be removed by planting a loose-growing groundcover in a rose bed.
Cathy
Central NJ, zone 7a
Neil, if what you have is Petty Spurge, per Roseseek’s post, then you may want to rethink eating it, or for that matter, touching it.
Link to plant info:
Petty spurge (Euphorbia (=Chamaesyce) peplus)
Cathy’
Central NJ, Zone 7a
A question I considered… in order to reduce weeding.
White clover is the best I know as here come summer it desappears resting and not competing roses roots.
Not for miniatures or flat ground cover roses as it overwhelms them.
Difficulty is establishing it when using plastic mulch as I do when planting out seedlings.
If white clover grows there as it does here, Pierre, I wouldn’t use it. I’ve seen how densely it invades golf courses and lawns, literally choking out the turf grasses. It impresses me as being almost as bad as having violets or seedling columbine sprout in the rose beds. I’ve dealt with both of those and they were NOT fun.
Choking out grasses and weeds is the goal of introducing White Clover…
Its effect on erect roses is excellent. After a few years the roses shade eliminates it.
I would have generalized it were it not too strong for the young seedlings and not compatible with plastic mulch.
This is the weed. Rather airy and less than a foot tall. Actually nice looking and easy to pull.
Neil
Petty Spurge, a euphorbia, as Cathy posted. If you are allergic to latex, it can give you contact dermatitis. If not, just don’t touch your nose, eyes or mouth until you’ve washed your hands as the milky sap can be highly irritating to sensitive people. Best part is rabbits and squirrels ignore it and the basal breaks growing through it. It’s actually a very pretty plant here and grows tremendously well all by itself. It will begin rusting to death in a few weeks and be replaced by a whole new crop.
Ok, other than irritating my tongue after awhile, no problem but I wouldn’t recommend making a salad out of it.
Neil
Neil, I should have asked this question in the beginning: what is your most important goal in planting a groundcover in your rose beds?
Cathy
Central NJ,zone 7a
[quote=“riccardo”]Hello everybody,
very interesting subject: we’re working with perennial to cover the soil under our roses. For us is of primary importance because our soil is heavy clay and if not covered with plant, it become very soon a dead soil.[/quote]
Riccardo, in my experience, the best way to prevent a dead soil around the plants is to rake some composted manure or other organic mulch into it. I am concerned that using any plant as a groundcover might just increase your weeding chores.
Cathy
Central NJ, zone 7a
I am concerned that using any plant as a groundcover might just increase your weeding chores.
Cathy and Kim, i agree that a “live mulching” can be a big work to take care of, but i’ve seen, in my experience, that vinca minor (not major), geranium macrorhizzum, stachys lanata, in our place are absolutely amazing.
They cover the soil, protecting it, and after a while no weeds grow inside of them.
Of course the first year is a full time job to remove weeds inside of them, but after two years, two years and a half, you can forget to weed there.
I have a sort of corridor in a little shaded position with some roses (iceberg and mme alfred Carriere), with vinca minor as a ground cover: it’s almost ten years that, apart from trimming the vinca in the pathway, no weeding is required. The iceberg are a little thin because of the shade, but the mme alfred Carriere is quite big.
It’s somewhat amazing that vinca minor is considered a perennial for shading position, not full sun, but my vinca is crawling literally in full sun position (full south).
I understand that different places, different climates, call for different solutions…
So, the only thing i can say is: for me is functioning. 
Cathy, we’ve tried with manure, but after two weeks is full of weeds, of the worst type. We’ve tried this year even organic mulch, but the roses caught a very bad infestation of blackspot.
I’m not sure if is for the mulch or for the climate (rain, rain,rain,rain,rain… ) but the roses without mulching got free from blackspot much more earlier than the mulched ones.
I’ll get back to this later. It’s a looonng day today getting rid of a Albatross.
Neil
This subject could go on and on.
First of all, nothing is planted in the rose beds but roses.
Second, home grown compost works real good but there is a limited supply.
Wood chips work good for about two years but has it’s draw backs.
Redwood trees don’t grow here unless you get some local soil from a mature tree. SIMBIOTIC microbes.
I like the idea of a living soil that encompasses a wide variety of microbes, hence the use of cheepo root growth enhancers which weeds possibly naturally have.
So with about 800ft of weed beds this one can get by about like it is and just cutting the big ones off on the surface.
Another lawn spot is naturally seeded and mostly weeds but green while the neighbors perfect lawns are turning brown and ugly.
Neil
I live on a scalped (4-15’ removed by builder) plot with ‘dead soil’ and it has taken many applications of organic home grown mulch along with various applications of humic/fulvic acids along with soil microorganisms – particularly good bacteria and fungi to get the soil to start supporting healthy growth. In my experience the spurge is great for poor soils as long as it is pulled and composted at peak greenness. I do allow violets to grow as ground cover-they do not grow far from the compost applications under each rose, along with several prostrate spurges under which the soil is always moister by comparison to bare soil. This being a very dry growing situation with only the area around the rose being watered, there is never a problem with extraneous weeds except under the rose proper. And it takes about 60 seconds to clear the surface of the soil or selectively weed under and around each rose with a Nejiri Kama of which I have several. The soil supports a healthier rose and soil fauna when it is covered with compost and/or groundcover.