Sounds like creeping rosemary to me. It's one of those things that doesn't rebloom, but has a fairly long bloom season.

Are You familiar With Ivan `Rabia That should be YVONN E. Space RABIER. Cannot type. Quail haven farms Coma who I believe is in California grows this and it looks to be short grows growing on top of a wall. I grow it and it is short but I am in a different zone. A charming rose that does bloom a lot here. I can't remember where I got mine it may have been Burlington. I knew she Carry zit from time to time. Carrie zip Excuse this post.

Thank you both! I will look up your suggestions!

Vaporvac - thank you for going to the trouble to post - I understood everything fine.

Everyone: I miss-spoke/wrote in my post. The exposure is South, not West (a little cooler here).

Jackie

I would do one of the up to date Salvias, then Catmints, finally gaillardia. There are so many newer improved variet of these to choose from.

Jackie, you could also go with a Drift rose. Sweet Drift and White Drift are shortish and cascade rather than gain height. Popcorn Drift and Apricot Drift are more upright and I can see these two reaching 3 maybe even 4 feet under your conditions.

Mister Moses

I have 4 shorties that bloom their heads off. The problem is locating them,

Reminiscent Coral, Celestine , Our Anniversary and Frilly Lily

Reminiscent Coral

Frilly Lily

Our Anniversary

Many minis would fit the bill, but since the container has some height off the ground, it would be nice to have a spreading type rose in it. Sweet Chariot and Borderer would do well there. I prune both of these back to 6" tall in early spring and they keep short in my garden.

I remember you have Arctic Sunrise? This is probably the most suitable rose in my mind. It never gets more than 18" tall (usually 10"), but can send out 18"-24" stems and then hang down long, making it a very beautiful groundcover rose.

For plants other than roses I would recommend interplanting bulbs for spring and short zinnias/sunflowers for summer. They are annuals, but good for direct sowing without dividing, an easier solution for me than perennials. ^_^

Hmmm. Do you have any pinks in your garden? You have so many roses already, I'd look elsewhere. I don't know how pinks would do, by the way. These humble relations of carnations are perennial, fragrant, extremely charming, and, though once-blooming, the plant looks good and distinctive all year round. I don't know what kind mine are, but there are a lot of short, fantastically marked pinks on the market and not what I mean: I'm talking about the ordinary ones from seed, up to about two feet in height, but tending to flop, with lovely silver foliage and colors in a range of soft pinks and white, patterned and fringed. The plants live for years, and set viable seed. I don't have many places suitable for growing them, or I'd have them all over the garden. They like sun and good drainage, tending to alkaline.

Seems like in such an ideal climate you would have so many options, Jackie. In that location I would only choose something that blooms 365 days year after year with minimum maintenance. I like Limonium Perezii , perhaps with Bidens ferrifula in front of it (Mom has grown both for nearly a decade, in the front of her house, not 1 single day without blooms.) Another combo might be Garvinea Daisies , with Lobelia Erinus in front…both have bloomed for me all year long and stay compact.

I’m going to nominate Ray Ponton. A small rose from Antique Rose Emporium that I haven’t found any faults with.

Otherwise I’d probably be in the creeping rosemary camp

Actually, add my vote for creeping rosemary. The color would be better than pinks against the house.

Thank, everyone! There are so mant suggestions here, I have printed this thread, and will be doing some research on the various options. I knew that this was the best place to ask this question!

Jackie

Jackie -- Have you considered "Benny Lopez"?

Or "Old Town Novato"??

Jeri - I woiuld try them in a second - they are so beautiful. However, I looked at their pics on HMF, and they both get way larger than what my DH had in mind (The wall behind this planter is made of 125 year old wood shingles, and we are trying not to get fined by our Fire Dept, so I would no be able to let any rose get very large, which is what almost all of them do in our garden).

This is theoretically his project. but I am trying to impose some realistic changes to it (he is great at building hardscape, but does not know much about plants). I think we will probably end up with a plant that is not a rose. I am planning on making a spread sheet of all of the non rose suggestions in this thread, and finding one that looks like it will work. I will update our progress on here as we go along.

Jackie

This may seem too old-fashioned, but why not a pelargonium? The Geraniaceae Nursery, which I believe is located in Marin, has a lot of harder to find pelargoniums that are more interesting than the local hardware store versions.

I would choose I small groundcover rose or one not so small like a drift. I would prune it every few months to keep it at the required size and see how it does.

I would choose I small groundcover rose or one not so small like a drift. I would prune it every few months to keep it at the required size and see how it does.

RBEHS - I will check out that nursery! For some reason I have never liked what we used to call "geraniums", but if there are new and better and different ones available locally, I will definitely check them out. Good tip - thank you!

dianela - one of the things I am contemplating at least putting on my spread sheet is a very very short ground cover rose. I so have one Drift rose, and it got huge, as roses do in my garden. I don't have the patience to constantly prune anything. Also, for both of these, at the moment we still have a doe with 2 fawns living in our garden, and they would prune any rose I put there, but they like the buds best, so their idea of pruning is not mine.

Jackie

I used to feel the same about geraniums--I put them in a category similar to daylilies, plants in every yard that never did anything interesting. It was the picture of the decades-old naturalized pelargoniums growing on Alcatraz in Phillips & Rix's "Conservatory and Indoor Plants" that shifted my perspective on them. I began exploring them as plants with complex histories now being homogenized or forgotten--which is the same thing that got me into old roses.

As @Formerly RBEHS Z10A/S17 says, there are heritage pelargoniums that, like old roses, have complex histories and have been passed down through generations. Geraniaceae has some of those. My favorite, by far, from them is "Bliq", which dates from the 1800s in Sicily. I have at least a half-dozen copies of it scattered around and it is among the most long-lived and continuous-blooming of the many pelargoniums I have, with excellent foliage and form. 'Madame Layal' is another favorite, which dates from 1870s France, and was the first "pansy" geranium, but it is not as sturdy a plant as Bliq.

Out in the garden just now, Bliq:

Wiw - thank You! I will definitely check out Bliq - I love the colors -

Jackie