In this area, nothing beats the Knock Outs or Home Run. I have heard that Lavender Simplicity is disease resistant, but the little feedback that I have on it isn't good. The other Simplicity varieties are blackspot magnets (at least Pink was for me).

I tried to grow the both the red and yellow Simplicity roses and only have one lone red survivor. In Zone 5, they simply did not live up to their hype. The lonely bush I have blooms well enough every year but doesn't compare to the Knockouts in size and disease resistance. I'd pick Knockouts over the Simplicity line hands down.
-t

I am in Northern California. I planted 6 lavender Simplicity roses to form a hedge last year. They did great. But I think they are going to be fuller this year. Lots of flowers and clean shinny foliage. These photos are from last year, at the end of their fall flush. I will post more photos in few weeks again with their this years spring flush.

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After haveing knockouts for several years they are truely a great shrub rose. They do better to me when you do keep them deadheaded as far as appearance but those babies are blooming fools. Never any trouble with blackspot. I will tell my sis-in-law to post you a picture of her knockouts. She has a blue zillion of them and they are always absolutely GORGEOUS. I bought me a lavender simplicity this year to so I hope it does as great as the knockouts. I agree with you it is so puuuurrrttyy!!!Judy

Knockouts!! Without a doubt. I was like you - new to roses and gardening, in general, and I was drawn in by the J&P Pink Simplicity roses. I went like a nut and ordered 12 of them to form a hedge in my backyard. They are the worst black spot magnets in my yard. Don't believe the hype in the J&P catalog. I used the Bayer soil drench and the Advanced Disease control spray consistently last year on my pink Simplicity roses. Nothing helped. They still balled, lost most of their leaves, and were stingy bloomers. Plus they were major JB magnets. I am slowly replacing them with pink knockouts and carefree beauty.

I have knockouts in my front yard and they have been beautiful and trouble free for me with no spraying at all.

Hope

I've grown the Pink Simplicity, and had a bed of them for years. True, they do get blackspot, but the flowers are more interesting than the single Knockout. I tried the Fragrant Lavender Simplicity, and found the blooms to be puny, devoid of fragrance to my nose and the plants even more bs prone than the pink Simplicity. I say forget all of them and get yourself Savoy Hotel. This is the best-kept secret in rosedom. This plant is a healthy blooming fool, with exhibition type blooms AND winter hardy in zone 5. My old Simplicity bed is now a bed of Savoy Hotel. Failing that, get Frederic Mistral. Has everything Savoy Hotel has plus intoxicating scent. These roses are EASY to grow.

It all depends on where you live. In drier climes like California, roses like Simplicity may be fine as there are no blackspot pressures. In the southeast, Simplicity is a disaster without a spray program and there are much better roses to grow if you are going to go to the trouble of spraying for fungal diseases. Paul has given a rave review of Savoy Hotel and Frederic Mistral both of which are not good roses in a southern no spray garden but may be fine in an area with less fungal disease pressure. Blackspot tends to be rampant in places that have high humidity and high nighttime temps. Basically, if you have temps in the 60s or better at night and it's miserably humid, that is blackspot weather. Knockout is bulletproof here and makes a really nice hedge. It comes in several colors and forms now so pick the one you want.

At my old house, I had a hedge of Knock Out and it was a show stopper:

Jean

Well, sounds like that's a pretty cut and dry answer - more Knockouts it is! It seems that where I am in MD we not only have the typical blackspot of this region, but a particularly virulent strain that is hard to cope with, so if there are even any questions about Simplicity then it won't work for me.

And Jean - that hedge is gorgeous! How tall are those? My pink knockout is about 3'6" or so - it may get bigger this year, of course (it only got IN the ground in August, although I had it in a pot for a couple of months before that), but it seemed to want to hang around that size last year.

I'll be interested to see how my New Dawn does. It was the ONLY climber that was consistently mentioned as shaking off our BS - it gets it, but doesn't seem to care too much about it. At the moment they're still pretty small (I put them in the ground in October), but there's clearly new growth on them and I'm excited to see if they'll throw out any flowers this year, and also how big they'll be by the end of the season (I want them to cover the world's ugliest chainlink fence, hence why I wanted something so big).

In any case, thanks for the opinions - you've made it an easy decision to make and I'm so glad I checked in here before buying. Hopefully this thread will help somebody int he future, too (I searched before posting and not much on Simplicity roses came up)

Thanks all!

Just bought three of these Simplicity rose bushes and I have one thats yellowing at the bottom, and all three have black spots on there leaves.. I live here in Indiana, and the tag even says for Temps that wont fall below 15..Hello, Indiana here...well below 15 at times.. Any way Just wondering...How well will these fair up here.. Any one know off hand, or will I be returning dead bushes to the local store for a refund? 1yr warranty on a plant is nice.. hehe

I have not tried Simplicity Roses. Knock out Roses seem to all be infected with the disease Rose rosette yet the nurseries still sell it year after year. The said thing is this disease infects the whole community once brought into your yard. If you look at the nursery plants, they all look quite healthy. Look closely, and you will see burgundy leaves growing in that don't look like the rest of the plant. They all seem to have it here in Maryland. They will continue to bloom but it is a fatal disease and infects the whole garden via a mite, so any rose you have ends up getting it. Remember to look for the reddish purple sprouting leaf on the plants that look slightly different. Im sad to say that the nurseries sell something like this knowing what this disease does. Beware

Thank you, Valerie, for that heads up. I have a Knockout rose in the backyard. It has that reddish purple sprouting leaf on it. All over the plant. It looks slightly different. I didn’t know what it was before you mentioned it now. It seems to do the same thing early every year after I cut the rose down to the ground. How can I treat it? It’s too late for me now, but why are these infected plants even allowed to be sold?

rifis (zone 6b-7a NJ) Can you upload pictures here? Sometimes that is also new growth. Look up Rose Rosette pictures on the internet or take the leaves to a knowledgable nursery. They will be twisted and completely look like a different plant. There is nothing you can do to save the plant once it has it, but the plant will live for awhile with it. The problem lies that it affects the whole community if you keep. Just make sure it is the disease before digging it up.

I had the sunny and the red knockout but they both died on me due to where they were planted in the garden. What happened was the black rubber pipe they had sim to the eaves trough had it placed so that whenever it rained really hard it would come down off the roof and into not only the ditch but into the garden and flood part of it out as it was like a moat. I wasn't aware of it at the time doing this and due to the constant freezing and thawing as well the roses eventually died on me. The first knockout I got was in this one garden but the sawfly larvae that was on the mini rose came over on to mine and did a number on it. Soooo moved it to the other garden was doing ok but then once the hostas got going and nobody actually looked after the garden letting them go wild they were overshadowing it. Move hah #3. Phoned my garden center where I got it from asked if it was okay to move it for a 3rd time and they assured me it was and just after I do to give it this quick start once every week for the next 3 weeks to help with the transplanting of it. And it has been there ever since. The tenacious rose proved to me it was going to pull through no matter what. And despite the size of it got a bloom or two on it!!! Never got around to covering any of them up last year. And it still survived. You should see it now!!!! Wow!!! Has gotten higher and has developed 4 buds on it. One of them has opened up today on it. Seems to like it there.

Irifis (zone 6b-7a NJ) I have an Always and Forever hybrid tea rose as well as a Strike it Rich rose and both of them developed reddish leaves on them. I asked here with my Always and no it was just new growth and I also asked on facebook this one place in the US and showed them the picture of mine asking if the leaves eventually go green on them. They pm'd me back saying they got in touch with their top rose expert and said that yes they eventually do go green on it. Maybe it is taking longer this year due to the weird spring we have had. But here is one when they were reddish on it. Is a hybrid tea rose. I have not seen any for sale here at any of the garden centers here this year but maybe too I was late to get to our Lowes and they had all been sold. The leaves that are all green are not like the rest of them so use the bush shears and gave it a so called hair cut by removing all the green ones from it. It has developed buds on it. But still can't get used to seeing it like this. Looks a bit better now.

Don't have one of what it looks like now. But will get one tomorrow morning. hopefully. Gotta recharge my camera's batteries.

Strike it rich rose also went the same way with reddish leaves but it is not a hybrid tea rose and its leaves have slowly turned green. My always is now a pale greenish red. The leaves on it last year were green when the bloom came out on it. Could try some Epsom salts not too much and sprinkle it around it. and scratch it in see if that helps it at all. Strike it rich rose. In fact shield rose and knockout rose all had red leaves on them to start indicating new growth and have now turned green.

Get to know Kordes roses, they are the most resistant to black spot for me in NY.