Fern - here's my 2 cents... of course you can plant other plants close to roses! In my little rose garden last year, I had 10 rose bushes, asparagus (as already discussed), 2 sets of chives, a large clump of lupines, 12 lilies, tulips, a Siberian Iris, 2 hardy geraniums, 2 painted daisies, about 30 annual phlox, lots of snapdragons, a peony, two delphiniums, lots of cilantro, I can't think of anything else but there may have been others. If your rose bushes are young or short-growing you might want to spread things out a little more but jeez, 3 feet is a formal rose garden, not a cottage garden. That garden was about a 20' x 25' x 10' triangle (rough guess), and was a little on the packed side, but the only things that disappeared were the painted daisies. The only thing I wouldn't recommend in a small space is delphiniums because they are so bushy. In that garden I mixed the soil with tons of compost before planting, and fertilized regularly until August.

You've heard of companion planting... chives deter spider mites from roses (so they say), and lupines fix nitrogen in the soil, which roses need in quantity.

Lilies are a good choice with roses because they have a small footprint and grow straight up. You can always plant low-growing creeping annuals around your roses because they will not compete for light.

Don't be discouraged from macro gardening just because so many of the great gardeners on this forum have acres to work with! ;0) If you aren't sure if something will go well close to roses, just ask.

Gillian

The only thing that I can think of that Gillian hasn't mentioned, and I'm surprised, are daylilies with your roses. Oh wait, if space is the issue, how about going vertical with an obelisk and a clematis?

Thanks for the words of encouragement - I was just getting very concerned that there really wouldn't be any space to put plants in with my 3 roses if I had to leave bare area around each rose - kind of wasteful with only 17x17.5 ft of total space. I have been thinking about using an obelisk but had thought to use it with the Prairie Joy rose possibly with a clematis growing with it. But then I get real confused as to what size the obelisk would have to be - base wise most of them seem to be maybe 1 ft - 1.5 ft square - does that work over a rose? I may really be over my head with this project...

Fern

Yes Laurie, it was a space issue with daylilies. I did actually have two baby daylilies at the corners of that garden, but I like to keep my full sun for full sun plants, and daylilies do great in part shade for me.

I have never seen the mini delphiniums you mentioned Fern. They sound really nice and would probably be great with roses. I also forgot to mention that the peony I had was a young peony and would likely have gotten too big after awhile. Everything's in the past tense here because I moved in the fall and brought almost everything to the new place.

Depending what kind you use, you can stick the obelisk next to the rose and train it up and around. I did that with my baby Mme. Plantiers last summer and it worked fine. I bought a roll of that velcro rose tying stuff and OMG it works great. Not that I've done it but I assume you could plant the clematis at another side of the obelisk... probably the north side so the rose will shade the clematis's roots (they like that). Make sure you let us know what you do and how it looks!!

I think an obelisk with an 18" base would work over a rose. You'd just have to do it when the rose is small of course. Make sure the legs of the obelisk are very secure in the ground, because when a clematis gets big on top of it, a good wind may topple it over and break some of the rose bush off with it. I know DH rigged some type of anchor for mine and it's much more stable.

Don't worry too much about keeping the area bare around roses, especially in a small space. Sometimes rules have to be broken. ;^)

Oh yeah, I was going to say about space around roses... the 3' rule is more for roses and climates that are hospitable to blackspot... something I hardly ever see here. Blackspot likes moist areas with little airflow - thus the spacing rule. The roses you have are supposed to be very disease resistant.

Well, I don't think you need to leave 3' around your roses...but you will have to leave some space. Roses need air circulation.....or they will get mildew or black spot as northspruce mentioned. I speak from experience here...when I crowded my hardy disease resistant roses. So I highly recommend leaving "some" space.

Worse case sinario...you will lose a growing season and have to move some plants away from them. But all should be fine the following year.

I planted daylilies, lilies and siberian iris with them for a while. My garden keeps changing as I change my mind to how I want it to look every couple of years. For a while, I had herbs with the roses. Then I went through a stage of planting annuals with them. Lately, I have decided for larger groupings of plants. LOL.

Don't be afraid to try things, but keep in mind that you will probably change things up in the future.

Happy Gardening,
Sierra