What Looks Good With Knockout Roses?

Accompany Knock Out roses with annuals, perennials, shrubs, herbs or vegetables.

The ever-blooming nature and disease resistance of Knock Out roses are leading gardeners to use more roses in their landscapes. The Knock Out rose family's homepage recommends planting them with annuals, perennials and shrubs, but creative gardeners have come up with other companions. Does this Spark an idea?

Annual Bedding Plants

You can soften the original cherry red Knock Outs with frothy pale blooms, such as Love-in-a Mist, or cheer them on with bold, bright marigolds or zinnias. Karen Dardick, of the San Diego Union-Tribune, featured the pink Knock Outs with Blue Wave petunias. Cleomes, dianthus and salvias are other flowering annual companions, or try foliage plants, such as sun-loving coleus.

Perennial Flowers

Perennials make more permanent companions for your Knock Out roses. Use low-growing perennial geraniums to fill in as ground cover, or include larger-flowered perennials. Tall, bearded irises in dark, solid colors or white Shasta daisies provide pleasing contrast to the solid masses of blooms the Knock Out roses produce.

Shrubs

Shrubs as Knock Out companions need not be bland background greenery. Virginia Cooperative Extension suggests dwarf palmettos, which provide spiky foliage and winter interest. These are hardy to U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zone 7.

Herbs and Vegetables

Some gardeners grow colorful lettuces under their roses or interplant roses with perennial herbs, such as thyme, or annual herbs, such as purple-leafed basil.

References

• Virginia Cooperative Extension: Introduction to Cold-Hardy Tropicals for Virginia Landscapes
• University of Maryland Extension: Woody Ornamental Landscape Plant Tipsompanion Planting
• San Diego Union-Tribune: Companion Plants Add Beauty to Rose Beds

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish
• Conard-Pyle Company: Knock Out Family of Roses