Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. There are now many colors of Knock Out.
What is ugly to one may be pleasing to another.
We all see colors differently. Certain shades of pink, green and gray all look the same to me. Some shades of Purple look blue to me so I have blue roses.

seedling of Knockout...
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Karl, you have blue roses? Have you been getting to close to your cannibus clover again? ;-)

Just teasin ;-), Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, that's for sure.

Unfortunately for all the new rose growers that think of roses only as one of the varieties of Knockout even KO's need to be fed, watered, pruned and deadheaded so they are not like having an azalia. They look good only from time to time and only from a distance and only to the undiscriminating viewer who doesn't really know what a rose is supposed to look like. They need sun and decent soil and growing conditions and they are a perennial which means they have a seasonal cycle. For a little work you get a show of color but that is it. I see them all the time and now after the hot dry conditions we have had they look pretty awful.

Just for grins, last year I saw Knockout available grafted to Fortuniana rootstock through J&P. Now that should be HUGE!
I planted it in Mom's front yard where it can have all the real estate it wants. (hehe -- grow baby grow!)

It was only 1 little stick in a 6 inch pot when planted 6 months ago and now it's already breaking through 5 feet and has relatively nice architecture. I cheer it on every time I see it. I can see why people like this rose. Knock Out is not a popular landscaping plant in California. Here the most popular see-it-everywhere rose is Iceberg.

Kathy

Iceberg does everything that Knockout does including be about as resistant to BS as a rose can be. I have almopst never seen BS on Iceberg and mine is now six feet high and in diameter and covered with blooms. (Interestingly Iceberg, a rose that almost never gets BS, has been used most often in the major research on BS preventatives including the most famous one often cited for tebuconazole.)

I sell alot of Iceberg roses. 4 well placed Icebergs used as a backdrop, with 3 KO's triangulated in front, makes for a sweet, little, rose display.

I love the smell of Iceberg in the morning.............it smells like victory.

I got involved with the city beautification board when I lived in the south when I learned they were going to plant roses. I didn't help decide to plant them, but did help to plant and take care of them. Yes, they need fertilizer, no you shouldn't plant them 6 inches apart.

The ko's transformed a weedy looking city cemetery edge into an attractive, colorful landscape display. I grew three in my back as a hedge between my neighbor's yard and my own and a double for the fun of it in the front.

Otherwise I grew about 100 tea and chinas along with some moderns - I was hoping to get enough credibility as a rosarian with the board so they'd listen about other roses that could be grown no spray in the south. I think that is the really important thing about ko's is that at least people are thinking about roses in areas where growing them no spray is difficult.

Out here in western Washington I haven't seen a single ko, but have seen a lot of roses in parks and yards. It's easy out here. It's not so easy in the south to grow roses w/o spraying them. The only things I found were the teas, some chinas and some of the new moderns.

I'm really hopeful that other vigorous, no spray roses will become available because people I think would be happy to grow them, they just want something easy care, with no spray. Right now, ko does that.

I don't personally think it is the most beautiful of all shrubs, but hey, it's a place to start.

Anyway, that's why I am OK with KO. Gean

ps, I personally wish that people in the south would grow the old teas like Marie Van Houtte and Mrs. BR Cant but there is no one that will make a lot of money selling those two old beautiful roses. That's probably why they're not more available, no patents - I don't know.

The only thing I knew to do, after I'd proved to myself that they could be grown well, is to grow them myself in my yard, give talks about them, give them away, sell them at plant sales and plant them on street corners when no one was looking. I'd just started to do those things when we left. I hope some of you all in the south will do that too and not just complain about ko's everywhere.

Knockout roses are rare in Europe, only a few French and German nurseries sell them. But they must have strong appeal because I've been asked several times about them by Swedes who've seen them on visits to the US. Thanks to this forum I've earned a reputation as a rose expert because I knew what rose they'd seen although I have never seen it myself.

Marianne in Sweden

I love them. No fuss and they look great to me. I'm not a rose purist nor to do I care to be but want a nice colorful yard and these are perfect. I have 4 sunny, 5 pink, 4 raza and they fit my yard well and I get people complimenting me on how nice they look.

Some of you are just snobs. Admit it. My KO's are not pruned, fed, watered or deadheaded. They form a thick, round bush which blooms all season. You need to understand the difference between a landscape plant and a specimen plant.

I may not be sophisticated enough to know what a rose is really supposed to look like, but I do a fair job at landscaping.

I love my Knockouts! I had hybrid teas planted in the same spot previously and they would lose all of their foilage every summer, due to blackspot, no matter what I sprayed them with. I have never sprayed the knockouts with anything. I do deadhead and fertilize mine. I only wish the blooms lasted longer. After a couple of days they are spent but they continuously bloom for me. Now if they were fragrant, I would not need to plant any other roses! Maybe a good thing? LOL

Now harryshoe, I don't think that just because some people don't like Knockout roses, they are snobs. I, for example, don't find them aesthetically pleasing. The flowers do not look pretty up close. It's a boring landscaping bush as well. Just because it gives a jolt of color to the garden does not make it necessarily, worthwhile. It looks like a "nothing special" bush.

There is such an obsession with low-maintenance these days. The trend towards gardens looking generic is so disturbing. How many times do we go through neighborhoods and see the same four plants grown all over every yard? It's gardening by numbers! It's like going to a foreign country and seeing McDonald's on every corner. Knockouts are part of this trend.

Juliet

I can only answer on the basis of my own experience which is that my Icebergs (I actually have two) are the among the most BS resistant roses I have which is to say there is no sign of BS on them. BTW, the roses most sensitive to BS tend to be those with the most shiny or glossy foliage while those with dull or matte foliage (such as Iceberg) tend to be the most resistant. Even though I spray with propiconazole the density of the roses and the lateness of the season means that there is going to be some BS to be found but not in the case of superior performers like Iceberg. I took a picture this morning and if I can get it posted I will.

I must have an unusual Iceberg. Just purchased this spring from RU it stands leafless from blackspot in a rose bed surrounded by well leafed Morden Sunrise, Clair Matin, Candy Oh and other roses. It's on the Southeast side of my house and gets full sun until mid afternoon. A Blushing Pink Knock Out just a few feet away has no blackspot and is completely covered with leaves and flowers

Iceberg was a disaster in my garden: a blackspot magnet.

Once I saw Iceberg with leaves and flowers at the same time. It was in the botanical garden at Fort Worth. It was a very noteworthy experience.

Iceberg came to my front garden one summer, promptly defoliated and got moved to the sideyard. It had a truly gorgeous spring, but when the flush started to subside the BS started moving in. I waited til the end of the flush and did away with him. A BS-less tea rose occupies his spot. I had a Knockout rose in my pre-OGR days. It got blackspot! (It was a pink one.) And when I tried to deadhead it, it attacked me viciously. It was almost an impenetrable mass of thorns - big and small. I must admit that the double reds are tempting in the store. The ones I see here would be better off if people watered and fed them. And they do get big here. These are at an OGR garden nearby and are well taken cared for.

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Sherry

Iceberg taken minutes ago along with a partial view of the garden. Also Double Delight which is beginning to put on a show again.

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I'm not a big fan of KO for all the reasons listed above, but my mom has a portion of her yard that I think could use a few roses, and I know anything more troublesome than KO would be beyond her capability to take care of. So I see KO as a great way for people who aren't rosarians to at least dabble in roses with relative little risk. And as far as I'm concerned, more is more with roses.

Due to several surgeries and aging bones my gardening is very limited----I used to be able to dig and garden with the best of them but no more------So I will defend anything that is carefree and delightful----KO is one of them along with a few others--
I detect a nice fresh scent and it looks lovely in a glass bowl full of clear water.

Florence

From what I understand, Blackspot strain/s are different from area to area.
So, a rose may do good in one area, but, not others.

First of all anyone who practices overhead watering should not be surprised to get BS. I would never do it and I expect to get through the season with minimal BS and virtually none on the more resistant ones which includes at least 80 percent of them. I also have a pond which makes it very difficult to spray because you can't let any of the spray mist, drippings or even the runoff when it rains to get in the pond. It is highly toxic to the fish and the population of frogs. Roses around the pond have some BS because they can't be sprayed. However the fact that I do spray lowers the threat to those that are not sprayed because BS is not prevalent in the garden. If you put the same rose in a non-spray and a spray garden and don't spray it in either it will do much better in the spray garden. I'm sure Iceberg which is BS free in my spray garden would do much better even if I didn't spray it than in the gardens of those of you who don't spray at all. And especially gardens that use overhead watering.

I just don't like them, they bore me. I do respect the line and the person behind it for developing easy-care and disease-free roses. The flowers just don't do anything for me. Lack of fragrance is a minus, too. Harry, you said yours if fragrant?

I think comparing Knockouts to actual roses is sort of like comparing McDonalds to an actual restaurant. They're like bad food for the uninformed (it satisfies them but just makes them fat.)

And, sadly, like MacDonalds, the fast food of the rose world begins to dominates all selection. More and more people choose the ease of convenience and true selection begins to suffer, especially under the unguided hands of the discount stores. We can only hope for the renaissance we've seen in real food (at a very low level) to help pull roses and all plants through this mire of mediocrity and laziness on the part of modern gardeners. As long as the big discounters determine our market, we will only have the blandness that the majority buys.

I visited my sister the other day. A church across the street from her has 46 Knockout roses plant.
I looked at everyone of them and they were all clean and disease free and looked really good.
They do very well here in the Central part of Pa.

Knockouts are real roses.

The rose family is a large one ... and Knockout fits in just fine.

Knockouts may be more like hamburger than steak, ... but, though I do eat steak on occasion, ... I eat a lot more hamburger.

I wonder how people responded when they first saw a China rose along side an European rose. Maybe like some of us here, they said "This is not a rose, a true rose is fat and loaded with petals and blooming only once a year!"

Chic--I love it!! lol

IMHO Knock Outs in masse or carefully placed Knock Outs are beautiful.

As you said in your original post, landscapers are to blame for over-reliance on Knockout when there are so many other options. I agree they are perfectly practical landscape plants, but I personally simply don't grow roses for landscaping. I grow them for the roses. So semi-double simple flowers are not my thing. Plus, though I don't want super-difficult disease-prone roses by any means, there IS something about needing to fuss with my plants a little bit to keep them happy that forces me to pay more attention to them and thereby actually increases my enjoyment of growing roses. The 4 shrub roses I have (3 chinas and a Day Breaker) are just sort of there for me; I forget about them easily, even though they're respectible plants.

This thread is far more interesting than I thought it would be, and certainly seems to have sparked surprisingly strong feelings in lots of people. I actually don't have any KO (yet) and am quite new to growing roses. I inherited several hybrid teas I would love to identify some day, and as they are in a garden that was pretty much untended for a decade, almost qualify as OGR.

That said, I have myself added several The Fairy (also so ubiquitous as to be sneered at a bit by some, I would guess) Julia Child (love it), Easy Does It (after a slow start it is amazing and still flowering strongly, I can't wait for next year), Roseraie de L'Hay rugosa, Purple Pavement rugosa X (purchased by accident when I thought I was buying Roseraie de L'Hay (always check the label at the cash!) but eneded up really liking it surrounded by Japanese Blood Grass), and a miniature called Victory I am hoping will overwinter. Next year I am adding Livin' Easy and Cinco de Mayo, probably others.

So there's my rose context for you.

I am pretty sure I will be adding some KO next year. I guess, for me, if you are a true "rosarian" I can see why these would be uninteresting for you, and I do think that, while they are attractive and healthy and ever-blooming, especially if grown well, KO simply lack whatever it is that makes a plant beautiful.

But I am a gardener, not a rosarian, and so I definitely have room in my garden for something that serves its purpose. I grow ornamental grasses, hostas, lilacs, hydrangeas, hollies, irish moss, persicaria, geraniums, anemones, asters, alliums, bearded and siberian irises, phlox, thyme, sedum, pulmonaria, peonies (herbaceous and tree), ferns, Echinacea, Rudbeckia, etc. etc....you get the point. And with all that going on, there are definitely some spots in there where an everblooming, compact shrub will make my garden that much more lovely. Spots where something as amazing as several more Julia Child roses simply would not work as well in the overall scheme.

I am sure I have a point in there somewhere.

I just think it's terrific that people care enough about plants and roses to even have an opinion or care about ko's, one way or another.

Well I purchased and planted a Double Red Knockout in late May of this year. I never thought I'd get one, but I did...lol

We all succumb sooner or later, Jim, lol!

I was purchasing bushes at a nursery and they gave me a free double knockout.(I can guess what some of you are thinking!)LOL I am not familiar with roses and for me this was a pretty bush. I thought I would keep it in the container and see how it does over the winter and next year. If it does well, I may be bold enough to starting growing and maintaining other roses. Comments and suggestions would be appreciated.Thanks!

I have about 100 roses in my garden - most of them are OGRs, with a few hybrid teas from the first half of the 20th century (which are very disease prone, and have ugly shapes as bushes, but they are family heirlooms, so I keep them).

I got my fist KO about 3 weeks ago, a Blushing Knock Out, which the info said was actually a sport of the original. It got planted in an area that, truly, only gets about 1 hour of direct sun. Well, now it is a little round bush, and covered with bloom, even in the shade! I like the matt green towards blue foliage, too. Clean as a whistle, of course.

I'm not planning on getting more, but I am keeping this one!

I am of the opinion that a garden that is taken care of is good, no matter what is in it. A garden with roses is even better. I do not disparage folks who have gardens with roses because I disapprove of their choice of roses! Yikes!

Jackie

I'm really liking the red double Knockout I planted back in the Spring. It's about 26" tall and wide right now.
Blooms great and the leaves are still looking very good on this bush.

I moved into a home with a horrific excuse for a garden last summer. This year, I finally was able to start working on getting a new garden going, but it was already mid-summer by the time I could hire the landscaper due to money issues. When he suggested I add in a few Knock-outs to get a fast punch of color, I explained how I used to grow roses at my old house, and wasn't to fond of this idea. He told me that the Knock-outs weren't his favorite either, however, he thought that adding just a few under my ancient hydrangea tree might work and at least get me some roses for the time being since it was too late in the season for me to purchase the ones I really wanted.

Surprisingly, I'm finding I really like the ones he picked out - 3 pink double Knock-Outs. They have gotten much larger than I anticipated, flower constantly, no disease; they look fantastic. I wouldn't get any more than this but I'm pleased with the ones that are there and I do think it was an excellent suggestion on his part for my current needs.

I will, however, be ordering "regular" roses this season to plant for next spring :D

Knockouts have their place; so does astro-turf.

Nothing's good everywhere.

In the Eastern states, where blackspot is a problem, Knockouts are a quickly becoming a cliche.

Here, where blackspot really isn't an issue, Iceberg fills that niche -- the chosen landscaping plant for every gas station and shopping center parking lot.

But, you know what? That's OK.

There are still places to use Iceberg creatively here.
And I'm sure there's a place for Knockout in an overall landscape in the East.

There's really nothing wrong with that.

Jeri

Next spring I'll be using Double KO and Belindas Dream As a hedge. (KO,BD,KO,BD,-----) Easy care and tons of blooms. I might even sneak Pink Pet's in there just to be different. And yes, I grow a lot of HT's, Mini/minifloras, OGR's, shrubs. To each his own. There are a TON of KO's up in this area. I want to show folks there are other roses out there that are easy care. This hedge won't get sprayed at all. Just water & food and dead head.

ken-n.ga.mts,

Are you in GA? What growing zone and State are you in? Thanks...

I sniffed a Double-Pink Knockout blossom at HomeDepo today. Great fragrance, even with my plugged up hayfever nose.

Double-Pink Knockout Tree Rose is very elegant. It is the masterpiece in this neighborhood.

Jim1961----I live in NE GA. on the east face of the smokies. Zone 7b, 6a. Trust me, it gets cold here during the winter. Weather coming from the north or west comes right through the mountains big time.

ken-n.ga.mts

I was just wondering if Belindas Dream would actually be disease resistant in your area?

I was wondering about Belinda's Dream's hardiness in Ken's area. Iffy here, but Ken's 7a/6b is different.

I winter protect with leafs 3 to 4 ft. deep. Belinda's dream does very well in my area. A little slow in the spring but "bang" late spring on into fall. And it stays clean.