Underplantings

[barefootgardener]

I underplant my roses with catmint. It is one of the first plants to bloom in early spring and it keeps right on blooming all the way till late summer. Then it get's another flush of blooms until late fall. It is a beautiful looking plant with purple/blue flower's and the leaves smell minty when brushed gently. It goes great with Roses. Very Hardy in my zone 4 garden.

 

[citygirlinthecountry]

I've been eyeing catmint in my gardening catalogs. It's pretty. I'm also looking at vinca minor and wintercreeper, both of which are perenial evergreens.
Any thoughts on those?
CG

 

[patandchickens]

Vinca is better than catmint if you want year-round green cover (edited to add: but is a problematic escapee into natural areas in some places - check locally before planting). Catmint is indeed pretty in flower, though, and less common than vinca if you care about that. Wintercreeper gets aphids etc really really bad in some areas so check locally first.

Pat

 

[citygirlinthecountry]

Thanks, Pat!

The roses are mostly in raised beds. Hopefully that would keep the escapees to a minimum. In a perfect world it would escape and battle the burmusa grass runners to the death! My luck though it will just join forces with the burmuda and create a whole new form of unstoppable grass. Sigh.

I can get vinca minor through Gurney's. I can't remember if the catmint is available through them as well. I really like that the vinca is evergreen and dense. There are a couple of places in the yard that need to be more or less maintainance free.

Any problems with chickens and vinca or catmint?
CG

 

[patandchickens]

Hm, with raised beds and nearly full sun, you may have a little trouble getting vinca to grow well... at the very least it'd need good watering. Suggest trying a 'test plot' next year before investing in a whole bunch.

Buy it locally, it's such a common thing it would seem silly to pay shipping, or better yet find someone who'll let you dig some up, make cuttings, coddle 'em along awhile, and *poof* plenty of free vinca

I don't think v. minor or the nicer kinds of catmint can be got from seed unfortunately.

Catmint and vinca are both pretty innocuous, should be ok for chickens, but be aware that the reverse may not be true

(edited to add: I would not count on vinca being dense enough to eliminate all or most weeds, certainly not for some years and then only if it is really happy)

Good luck,

Pat

 

[patandchickens]

belated thought, having gone back to reread your original post - if it's mainly a matter od keeping down weeds, have you thought about putting down a layer or 2 of landscape fabric around the roses, staying a foot or so away from their bases, and topping with a buncha mulch? Will require relatively little weeding. If that looks too stark, plant some decorative whatevers in holes cut thru the landscape fabric (between roses). If you mulch a lot and pull any weeds while they're small, it'll last at least 3-4 yrs before needing replacing.

The idea of groundcover plants as something that will radically reduce or eliminate weeding is often highly misunderstood IMO... relatively few kinds will grow *that* densely, and even those that will, they take a good long time to establish complete cover, during which time (years) you still gotta weed a lot.

Just a thought,


Pat

 

[citygirlinthecountry]

Yeah, I actually spent much of my free time last fall laying down layers of newspaper and/or weed cloth and then dumping pine mulch over that. I got 3/4 of the front flower garden done before it got cold. I'll tackle the veggie garden when it warms back up again. The problem is that I am one year into converting what was grassy yard into veggie and flower beds. The burmuda and crabgrass are still making strong forays into to beds. I stayed on top of it for the first half of the summer and then got busy at work and missed a couple of weeks. That was all it took for me to lose the battle!

I've been doing some reading on companion plantings. I may try that direction instead of the vinca. It makes sense to put something pretty with the flowers that will have a healthy/beneficial effect. I do have some shady areas in weird places that would probably look better with the vinca than the rose garden.

I'm hoping with a preemergent put down in a month or so and newspaper or weed cloth with mulch over that, I might have a fighting chance this year on the burmuda runners.

CG

 

[beefy]

vinca is a weed! it will take over your whole yard. i promise.

 

[Reinbeau]

vinca is a weed! it will take over your whole yard. i promise.

That is true in some areas of the country, around here it's manageable, I've had a vinca patch in my side yard for years and years, and it has never grown beyond its allotted area.

 

[citygirlinthecountry]

Hmmm... I'm in middle TN. I'll need to do a little study to see if it acts like kudzu here or not.

It has been warmish on and off here for the last few weeks. I've started weeding around the roses- mainly pulling up burmuda runners. I hate those things!!!! Probably this summer I need to lay newspaper and mulch the snot out of it like Pat suggested. I'm not sure anything can beat out the burmuda right now. Stupid weed. un

In my Perfect World, my new chickens won't be able to get enough of the burmuda and will eat all the runners right up! Fingers crossed on that one!