🤨 sharp color splotches.

Who is Will Radler? Diane

@Diane Brakefield

Bill Radler is the breeder who created all the Knock Out type roses.

As an aside, I don't know about the rest of you, but I sure am tired of seeing swaths of Knock Outs planted everywhere. Municipal plantings of 5 and 10 bushes at a time are especially tiresome. Yes, they do what they're meant to do, but I'm sick of seeing them everywhere.

(Apologies to those who like their Knock Outs)

The Knock Outs perform their function well. They are not necessarily meant to be the dedicated rosarian's rose for his beloved rose garden, although they can be under certain circumstances.

I have a gardening friend who has a 10'x10' meticulously attended to perennial bed. In it she has just one Knock Out bush, the original semi-double one. She prunes it ala hybrid tea fashion, pruning it to about 10" in the spring. Each spent bloom (bloom cluster), gets dead headed back to the first five leaflet leaf. She does not let it self clean and make fresh growth that way, as the commercially planted Knock Outs are mostly managed...plant it and forget it.

Her Knock Out is actually beautiful. Large blooms on a well groomed bush are the result, getting to 40" tall and 20" wide by season's end, blending harmoniously with her perennials.

Moses.

Yes, Knock Outs are essentially the non rose go-er's rose. However, I have seen BEAUTIFUL ones before.

They are slowly getting shadowed by the Drift series and other, newer landscape roses.

Here is a nice Double Knockout I saw one year on Halloween. Don't mind the bad quality of the image.

There are other far better landscape roses in my opinion, I think that's something we can all agree on. However, Knockouts do fine as an all arounder

Apricot Drifts aren't bad at all. I use a bunch of them for fillers but they can get pretty big here.

Holiday World in Santa Claus Indiana has a lot of Drift roses. Though last time I was there I'm pretty sure some had RRD.

They are beautiful. Something new to the eyes!

To be clear, I do not object to the characteristics and virtues of the Knock Outs, I am just getting really tired of seeing them everywhere I go.

Will Radler is famous for his knockout series. But he also bred other varieties like Sitting pretty, Orchid romance, Ice cap rose (dont confuse with iceberg rose). Ice cap white rose is a very hardy rose for colder zones and blooms almost non stop. Another variety he bred is Highwire flyer, a very beautiful pink, which is an absolute bloom machine of a rose

Getting back to Enchanted Meadow, I would be happy with a dull orange. So far mine is a vague cream with age spots and no discernible pink edge that I can see. I'll give it grace as a first year plant but I haven't yet seen it look nearly as good as the pictures.

Among knockouts though, I've found Orange Glo Knockout looks BETTER than the pictures. It's a good 4' tall and a soft coral orange that stays that color till it dies off. It's a solid hardy rose and consistent bloomer with no blackspot in my region. It's the only Knockout variety in my yard, since Double Easy Red is a much better bloomer for me than standard Knockout. I agree that I'm tired of seeing it everywhere and wish commercial plantings would branch out into some of the Easy Elegance or Drift roses more. We don't get the Iceberg overload here in this zone as it doesn't overwinter very well, but apparently that is another one that people in California are tired of seeing.

Cynthia

I saw Enchanted Meadow at Otto & Sons and was enchanted with it. It was full of blooms that I found very romantic. I almost bought it, before I reminded myself that I literally have no room left for any more roses -- unless I take roses out. And now that I have to remove a few due to new wildfire area safe zone regulations/rules -- well, I have even less room. I grow Sitting Pretty, and it just gets better and better. Planted it last year in summer, so this is only its second summer. So far a real bloomer, very healthy, nice form. Cindy @ Otto and Sons had said she thought it was a very under-rated rose. I agree.

Hi Deborah, No room, no room! That is our mantra. I chant it at night before bedtime and when I'm on this forum. We're still dealing with fires in this area, but I think the smoke is gone. Just looked outside, and it's definitely not sunny. I hope the fires stay away from you.... far, far away. Diane

The municipal plantings of Knock Out throughout the Midwest, South and East provide a constant contamination source of RRD virus that plague many of your home gardens. Why is it still on the market?

Because all other roses will do the same. Unless we all are planting R. Palustris, R. Roxburghii and or R. Spinosissima the roses will continue to get RRD.

The Multifloras are the main spreader but those things are indestructible. They flower while having RRD and set seeds, the plant withers away and it's offspring are in a perpetual system lol

When can we have RRD immune roses by genetic modification? I feel like that would be a game changer for many...