I use the groundcover form of Veronica. It has pretty blue flowers early in spring. It's vigorous without being too invasive. I use alot of sedum of different types(tough)Australian Brass Buttons is tough with silver foilage and little yellow button flowers. The groundcover Campanula is nice with blue flowers. I have Santa Barbara Daisy. It looks good but is rather a pain in the neck with it's vigor.

I grow strawberries amongst many of my OGR's.

Dee, I love dianthus. It's very manageable in that it makes a fairly small mound about 2' or less wide. When it's past its prime, I just give it a haircut, and it grows back blooming. It is a year-around plant, staying green in 18 degree temps and 95 degrees with all the humidity Florida can muster. It comes in lots of colors - white, pink, maroon, fuscia, red, red/white, pink, pink/white, etc.

Strawberries sound interesting. I may try them.

I like taller plants among the roses. Salvia farinacea is a nice, soft plant that doesn't get overbearing and doesn't spread, and the flowers are a glistening sky blue. It also comes back in the spring!

I love coreopsis 'Early Sunrise', but it multiplies/spreads very quickly. Dividing it is very easy though and you get free plants out of it.

I also have lots of daylilies.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

I am going to try organic this year and strawberries sounds awesome my only concern is that I use milorganite but I just spent hour reading the different views on this subject so I think I will try the strawberries and rotate milorganite with other iron fertilizers.

Sherry think I may try some dianthus in beds i used systemic insecticide in the past at least for year to try give soil chance to clean out.

ty for replies

For the first year, I could not decide what to use, for ground cover between my roses. So, I planted some Surfinia petunias around them.
They were a great success. Each one covered over a square metre, and flowered all summer.
The colours, mainly pinks and purples, went very well with the rose colours.
At the end of autumn, they were easy to pull out, so the area was clear for me to put down the donkey manure and fertilizer.
I am growing other companion plants from seed, but some may not be ready to be planted out this year, so, I will be very happy to use the surfinia petunias again.
Daisy