Which Rose is best suited to be a soil coverer?

Question

It has to prevent the soil from drying out and has to suppress weeds if at all possible?
Excuse the poor way of wording the question.
Soil: Clay
Position: all options possible.

I do dig a big hole for the rose to start of with. Mix the clay with organic material, home made compost, fertilzer, some potplant soil, (which is very good here) Otherwise the rose would immediately drown or dry-bake itself into concrete.... but other than that, the soil is still clay...

Hey oli, thanks for explaining... I am actually a good gardener myself, I just was wondering which roses would cover the ground.... I know mostly climbers you see.... I love improving the soil though. get those worms in there, cause they do the best job ever. but I've dug the entire garden, just to bring air into this slab of either cocrete or mud. :-) enormous amount of topsoil went in and on top... and still lots to improve..

Answer 1

Flower Carpet......they spread as well as mound......need very little maintenance (spray, prune)

Answer 2

Have hard clay soil?
Open the link below for how to amend your hard clay soil with gypsom.
After that use organic compost manure and Canadian peat moss (spaghnum) You'll have much better soil. I say Canadian because most if not all comes from Canada.
The peat will help you keep moisture in the soil
The gypsom will loosen the soil.
The compost will enrich it.
http://www.allotment.org.uk/articles2/Here_is_Why_You_Should_Use_Gypsum_in_Gardening.php
Here is Why You Should Use Gypsum in Gardening By James Ellison
Do you have clay or layer of hard subsoil problems in your garden?

Then gypsum may be the answer to help loosen the soil structure. It is not considered a miracle substance and you will find that it doesn't work right away, but a 3 year program of applications should help improve the poor soil conditions. It is not expensive and is easy to spread where needed.

Gypsum also has a job of repairing the soil that has been damaged through compaction from heavy stock, machinery, in the recovery of sub-soils exposed by earth movement and in soils affected by salinity.

Answer 3

Hi. The part of the question concerning me here is the word "clay". Roses are not going to thrive in clay soil. Roses require drainage at their roots. Is it possible to amend your soil with organic material?

I am afraid that if you plant roses in clay soil you will be disappointed.

Try amending the soil where you plant the roses. You want to add some things like compost, (or manure, peat), decomposed bark mulch, sandy soil supplement, etc. Work those things in well. Garden success is mostly about giving plants what they want, and roses want well drained soil.

The easiest roses to start with are roses like rugosa, bonica, the fairy, carefree wonder. Also a good choice under 3 2/2 feet are the old roses such as Rosa de Recht, (a red variety).

Good luck. But remember: soil. Otherwise you will eventually lose the roses.

Best of luck to you!