‘'Hot' colors draw the eye and cool colors do the opposite, so if you have an area of vibrant red, orange or yellow roses at a distance down the garden it will draw the eye and foreshorten the visual space.

You can choose a palette of one color, or a variety, but think about where the roses are located in the backyard. 'Most roses will mix well together, with the exception of the Hybrid Teas that tend to have rather strong, hard colors and very upright growth that doesn't sit well with the older roses and English Roses,' explains Michael Marriott. Roses are often organised by color in more formal rose garden designs, which has greater impact, but in a more informal, or naturalistic planting design you can experiment more. (Image credit: Howard Walker) Can you mix rose colors?

These modern rambling roses can also be cut back quite hard each year, in much the same way as the perennials and grasses, making annual maintenance relatively easy. To keep things looking more natural and to reduce your maintenance, don’t support these rambling roses on trellises – just let their stems arch and mingle with the adjacent grasses and perennials. There are many smaller, modern rambling roses that work beautifully in naturalistic planting schemes.Perennials like Salvia nemorosa ‘Amethyst’, Aster ‘Little Carlow’, or Betonica officinalis ‘Hummelo’ are also good companion plants. Grasses like Sesleria autumnalis, smaller miscanthus varieties, like ‘Kleine Silberspinne’, Calamagrostis brachytricha or Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’ can all work well with roses. When choosing perennials and grasses to go alongside the roses, select plants that offer long structural presence or flowering interest from spring into winter, avoiding anything that is likely to die back in mid-summer or flop over in early fall.Don’t spend time deadheading roses, just let the flowers fade naturally so you can enjoy those beautiful hips later in the year. Choose roses that produce hips as a great way to extend seasonal interest, reduce maintenance and embrace a more naturalistic look.In terms of color, go for a more natural and simple palette - so whites, soft pinks and purples rather than anything too bright or strongly colored.Although these wild roses usually only flower once in early summer, they produce beautiful hips for fall and winter interest. Or consider using wild or ‘species’ roses, such as Rosa virginiana or Rosa glauca, which are often very tough and disease resistant. When choosing your roses, go for those with simpler, open flowers that are closer to the wild or hedgerow roses rather than anything too blousy or ornamental.

He offers the following tips for incorporating roses into naturalistic planting designs: 'To create a more naturalistic and contemporary rose garden design, plant roses in among a selection of ornamental grasses and perennials, where the goal is to let the roses intermingle with the other plants,' explains designer Colm Joseph. (Image credit: Colm Joseph/ Britt Willoughby Dyer) How can you create a naturalistic, modern rose garden design?

Companion planting garden layouts