For me I like to have different varieties

I like to mix my roses in with the rest of my garden so a variety works better for me. Plus, on a small urban lot I need to maximize my space if I want to be able to try all the roses that interest me.

I have a big mix of old roses and newer varieties. I like seeing layers of roses taller ones behind shorter varieties. I do have a lot of climbers. Also, most of my shrub sized roses tend to get large here. Smaller roses don't usually fare well due to wildlife and even our own animals lol. Someday, I will make some raised/walled beds so I can put some smaller ground cover, cascading type roses in them. Currently, I start my smaller or slower growing baby potted roses in my raised veggie beds until they can be planted out and survive.

Sultry, how big do your potted roses have to be before you plant them out?

Honestly I do both.

I like having lots of rose varieties, but I don't want the polka dot effect. It helps to have something that ties them together. The eye wants unity. You can to this lots of ways. The easiest is to have an edging plant that encircles the garden and gives it structure. Or you could have all cool shades in one bed, and all warm shades in another. Or all pastels. Luanne (a former GW member) used that to good effect.

I do like a hedge of the same variety, very effective. But when space is limited this does mean you are restricted.

Bart Bart, I do both and a hedge of the same rose is pretty impressive. But there are so many that I want to grow that most beds are blending colors of different roses

I do both. I like smaller shrubs planted in threes as part of a mixed rose/perennial planting scheme. Most of my beds have a predominant colour blend, so reds and oranges, apricots and yellows or purple, pink and white.

bartbart, I usually like to see them a few feet tall. Then I will plant them out and put some chicken wire around them. Its easier to move them if I just initially sink their nursery pots in my raised beds. Then, I only have to dig up the pot and move it to its new spot. I can use pruners or sheet metal shears to open up the pot holes bigger to get the roots out when transplanting (if need be). I think the baby roses like the rich loose ammended soil in the veggie beds and grow faster, shooting their roots down through the pots. I usually put a few holes in the sides of the pots as well, under the soil line.

I try for the massed effect by planting similar varieties in a bed, interspersed with some different colors to provide some contrast. I also use annuals in purple/blue like salvia and Persian Shield to make everyone play together nicely and add that true blue color roses can't provide.

I'm a collector so the thought of massing several of the same rose where I could have three different roses doesn't appeal. I do have repeats of some roses across beds (like Earth Angel, Bliss, Icecap, Campfire) where they provide some nonstop bloom to help out the less frequent bloomers. If I repeat roses within the same bed (like Sweet Fragrance or Brindabella Crimson Knight) I space them out so they tie the rest of the bed together. Mostly I do that in my bed in front of the house where there is a limited color scheme and my husband has asked that it look "tidy".

Cynthia

I try to mass plant any of my roses that I put in the ground. Shrub/Floribunda's (especially upright growers) I like to plant 3's. Triangle, 14 inch's apart. It gives the look of 1 huge bush. My HT's I try to plant groups of 2's, about 14/16 inch's apart. It gives the same effect. I spray every two weeks for disease's, so I'm not worried about "being too close". I hand water my garden most of the time and I give all my bush's a good bath to make sure no spider mites try to set up camp in some of the tight areas.

I prefer a mixture of roses because I want to try so many of them and have limited sunlight. I did plant 3 of Sweet Madamoiselle and 3 of Scentuous because I hope to get lots of matching scented blooms for floral arrangments.

It is too difficult for me to stick to a single variety because I just like too many to restrict myself so much. I do plant them in groups of at least three if I can manage so it appears like a larger fuller bush. If you have a smaller lot this can seriously limit the amount of varieties you can have so it may not work for everyone. I overhead water with a sprinkler but I am being very selective with my baroeties and requiring very good disease resitance to stay in the garden.

3 earth angels in triangle

3 the faun/fawn in a row

3 bordeaux cityscape stagered a bit

Thank you all so much-you are all helping me think things through quite a lot. Beautiful pictures, too-my absolute favourite type of rose photograph are these ones of full bush shots that show how the plants really look in a real garden. I hope that others will weigh in.

The "polka dot effect" is something I definitely want to avoid! I like the idea of using similar varieties together. My garden/landscape is huge.and does need mass effect (susan, your "riot of colour" is charming! but it would never work in my context). At the same time, I want to get rid of my pot ghetto ( see my "How big should a potted own-root floribunda-type rose be..." thread for clarification, if you are interested),and limit my new aquisitions to the strictly necessary in order to fill in my empty spots. Thus, I'm thinking of grouping my potted Forever Royal together with my potted Burgundy Iceberg and just buy one new bare-root Burgundy Ice,put that next to a trio of Sheherazades...Ken, might I ask why you group floribundas in threes, and HT's in twos? Because I have an own-root Twilight Zone; I wanted to get a new bare-root TZ and put it next to the one I have, and move my wimpy EbbTide (if it survives the rest of summer) out of it's obviously bad spot and put it kind of at the feet of the two TZ s...

If I were to follow this plan, I'd only have to buy one new TZ, one new Burg. Ice, and 2 new Sherherazades (that is, IF the Sherherazade I have now, which is next to Ebb Tide in the poor spot, also manages to survive the summer,lol).