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Underplanting Roses and 'That' book!!!

     I have just picked up my order of bare rooted roses (mainly species 
     with good hips and so-called old fashion types such as Commandant 
     Beaurepaire, Reines des Violettes, Honerine de Brabant, Prince Camille 
     de Rohan, Fisher Holmes, R. 'Single Cherry, R. sweginzowii macrocarpa, 
     R. fedtschenkoana, R. willmottiae and R. moschata 'Semi Plena')
     
     The question is what to underplant them with?
     
     I have tried Dianthus, Nepeta, and hardy Geraniums all to good effect - 
     but does anyone else have some more innovative and unusual suggestions?
     
     
     Susan George
     McCrae, Australia  
     
     
     PS - re the Quest-Ritson book - after reading Gay's and Tim's comments 
     perhaps I was a little harsh - but then I had just finished reading the 
     following comments which were a little too much for me:
     
     "Teaching the (Italian) authorities to appreciate English horticulture is 
     crucial to the future of La Mortola. The Italians perceive the ornamental 
     overlay which the garden gained between 1920 and 1940 as a puzzling change 
     of direction. They cannot assess its importance, cannot appreciate its 
     aesthetic and cannot put it into an historic context. Moreover, they are 
     perplexed by the passion it arouses in the English."
     
     Two pages earlier the author had made the following comments about Dodo 
     Hanbury who was responsible for the changes at La Mortola during the 20's 
     and 40's:
     
     "This transfer of authority might have proved disastrous, because Cecil had 
     married a woman of quite exceptional silliness. (Dodo) was brave, proud and 
     amusing, but a social and political liability. She treated La Mortola as 
     her personal fiefdom, and used it to attest her own glory...(Dodo) was 
     convinced that pretty flowers made a garden. This conviction has long been 
     common among the English, but in Dodo Hanbury's case it took the form of 
     revelling in a riot of colour and disparaging all botanists, 
     horticulturists, garden designers and possessors of expert knowledge, 
     unless they were related to her by blood or marriage ...Even now, thirty 
     years after her death, it is difficult to find anyone on the Riviera who 
     has a kind word for her."
     
     I wonder if the Italians would agree that they need to be 'taught' to 
     appreciate English horticulture, or whether the English would agree that 
     they have the conviction that 'pretty flowers make a garden', or whether 
     Dodo was indeed such an ugly character and how could somebody who was so 
     apparently lacking in intelligence have enough judgement to make such a 
     good garden (an unsolved mystery)????? - Certainly, anyone who struggles 
     with changes in botanical nomenclature would have some sympathy with a few 
     disparaging comments about botanists!!!!  Perhaps I am the one who is now 
     being bitchy - you know what they say about people in glass houses!!?? Oh 
     well all in good fun.
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