We have just started work on our rose garden and decided to fill it out with various artemisias; however I have just read that it is a bad idea to plant wormwood anywhere near roses. This is only one book mind you..
Does anyone know if this is wise advice, and if so should I also keep my southernwood, Powys Castle etc etc away from the rose garden?
Hope someone can help!

Hi Jim

This is a new one on me, I go to a lot of gardens like the ones the National Trust own and artemisia is used to edge rose beds I'm sure. It's a good companion plant, so I don't know why your book said this, out of curiosity, which book was it and what did it say?

I know you shouldn't plant the wormwoods near anise, beans, caraway, fennel, peas and sage as they all belong to the Magnoliophyta division of plants as does the rose there could be a common link? Wormwood gives off a chemical and I can't recall what now,  which can inhibit growth in some plants, maybe that's the reason, not sure about your southernwood etc. I know lavender and chives work well as a companion plant for roses. I'll have a look in some of my books and see if I can find anything about wormwood and it not being planted with roses.

Debs

Sure I'm not alone here in having FAR TOO MANY herb books around so now cannot find which one abjured me from planting wormwood amongst roses... d*mn!
However have since read in Deni Bown's "Herbal" that it is ok to generally mix artemisias with roses (as Debs points out above) so will take the plunge, but probably keep wormwood, specifically, out of the equation. The more I read of wormwood the more it seems that it is a hazard to ANYTHING planted next to it. A shame, as - of the artemisias - it has the most extraordinary scent of all.

Hi Jim

I've grown wormwood and russian wormwood next to other plants and never noticed it having an adverse effect on them. The wormwood eventually died (after several years and hard exposed frosts), but the nearby plants didn't.

You might want to take a read of what Juliette Levy says about wormwood. I don't have her book to hand as I'm at work, but she really likes the herb and feel it's much maligned and underused today.

Sarah

Hi Ken et all

Further to what Sarah just posted about Juliette de Bairacli Levy, she also posted the following a few weeks ago:-

"I'm just coming to the end of Juliette de Bairacli Levy's book, "Common Herbs for Natural Health". Her final chapter is about gardens and orchards giving useful information about protecting seeds, plants and fruit trees with "nasty herbs" - wormwood etc to deter pests and thistles and brambles to deter slugs and snails going up trees."

Given that most fruit trees belong to the Rosaceae family the same as the rose, then I'd say that it would be fine. I've just taken delivery of some wormwood seeds and will be sowing them soon, to plant in the front garden. I've still not come across anything that says you mustn't put roses and wormwood together. Will keep my eyes peeled though.

Debs