I'm a pretty lazy gardener, truth be told. Half my roses have damage that looks like that, covering a third to a half of the bush/plant. Nobody angsts over it but me... Hubs could care less. Visitors look at the flowers and the redwoods and say "ooooh, pretty!" and never notice the foliage damage. As many times as I have looked (a lot), I have yet to find more than 2 culprits, so I gave up. As long as my bushes are still growing, I can live with some unsightly leaves. I don't like it, but I can tolerate it.

If Munstead Wood stays dark most of the time, it would be great, but I have never seen it in real life, so I don't know how good a rose it is--although the description looks very promising. I did a quick google search--several bloggers mentioned that it is lighter during the summer--more pink in it, in other words. It could still be combined with Double Pink KO, but there would be less contrast and the overall effect would be "louder"--which isn't necessarily bad--think of Pappu's famous pics from a couple years ago--that was one loud, beautiful garden. It depends on how comfortable you feel with "loud." If you go with Munstead Wood, I would tone it down a bit by alternating MW with a white bloomer--like I said above, either Green Ice (lots of nice green foliage when it is between bloom cycles) or Gourmet Popcorn (good bloomer). That would give more contrast, but "neutralize" the overall effect to some degree. And in the cooler spring and fall when MW is darker, the white would keep the darker color from receding too much into the background--one of the problems with darker colors on a back fence. I guess by dark wine red, what I really had in mind was mums--they come in some gorgeous shades. How do they grow in MI? They bloom for a long time here in September and October. The alternating plants (Green Ice, let's say) would bloom in the spring and summer. I often like to stagger the bloom times of my garden clusters, but then I also like the bigger splash of everything blooming at one time. Here's a wild idea. My garden center was selling BLACK petunias this year. Get about 3-4 containers of them spread out at the feet of the KOs, and alternate with the Green Ices. That would be really cool. In the spring (before petunias can handle the cold), I'd probably plant a bunch of the darkest pansies I could find. They come a red or purple so dark that they almost look black. For that matter, if it doesn't get too hot during your summers and the pansies can survive therefore your summers (they burn up in July here in Kansas), just go with dark pansie in 3-4 containers alternating with something white like Green Ice. (Yeah--I keep insisting on that white, don't I! : ) ). Or if you really want all roses, conduct that annual search for the blackest rose possible. Good luck. Let us know what you come up with. Interesting project. Kate

I actually have Double Pink Knockout. I got it from White Flower Farm this spring. I like it very much! It is very pretty, prettier than regular D Knockout in my opinion. Its not, perhaps, as great as the original single Knockout - its not the same kind of non-stop bloom machine (but then of course, my plant is young, and this is just its first year). The color is very bringht, good in hot sun. No disease problems or anything like that. I do have it planted in a sort of difficult spot (pretty bad, dry soil and roasting sun for most of the day) and it seems to be holding its own quite well.

Yeah, they do the same thing here. But not so good of a deal. Last year one of the lowes across town did the same thing w/ tropicals. We "rescued 15 different plants. I am still nursing a majesty palm back to health and so far I am doing quite well. I am always out for a good deal at lowes sometimes they have good deals and at other times they are not so good.