LAYERS OF MEANING
For years I have wondered why I can’t love the ‘Knock Out’ rose. Millions of people sing its praises every day, including some well-known plant pundits. By all accounts it is a stellar garden performer. ‘Knock Out’s confront me at every turn–in private borders and public plantings–but I still can’t warm up to these red-flowered commercial phenoms. I considered therapy for this problem, but the cost would put a serious crimp in my garden budget and I would rather spend the money buying plants. Finally I decided to wait until spontaneous revelation answered the existential ‘Knock Out’ question.
Fortunately the revelation came. I was standing by a row of hybrid musk roses and inhaling their elegant, old-rose fragrance when it dawned on me. To figure out why I don’t like ‘Knock Out,’ I had to consider the winning qualities of the roses I love best.
I am drawn to old-fashioned rose beauty and that means a lush appearance and lots of petals. ‘Maiden’s Blush,’ for example, is an old-fashioned Alba rose. Each bloom has up to fifty pale-pink petals. It is absolutely voluptuous when fully open. ‘Knock Out,’ on the other hand, has five to thirteen petals per blossom, making a pretty show, but not a lush one. There are many spare and lean times in life, and for my money, a spare and lean rose–even a pretty one–just doesn’t provide enough comfort.
Fragrance is an absolute requirement in my garden. There are some beautiful roses, especially hybrid teas from the mid twentieth century, which have little or no scent. They are fine for public rose gardens, but not for my establishment. Fragrant varieties have a whole host of scents–citrus, myrrh or licorice, fruit, spice or “old rose.” On a sunny day there is nothing more glorious than standing in the middle of a garden full of fragrant roses. My favorite fragrant rose, Joseph Pemberton’s ‘Felicity,’ a hybrid musk has a scent that is like a valentine. ‘Knock Out’s have little, if any, scent.
The roses I love are mostly shades of pink, peach and yellow, with a few true reds and whites thrown in for good measure. If you look closely at most of them, you will see that the color of each petal is actually many colors. ‘Gruss an Aachen,’ for example, is silvery pink with a bit of white and darker rose in each petal. The strength of each color element varies according to time of year, climate conditions and the amount of light the plant receives. ‘Knock Out’ and its offspring–all of which have the ‘Knock Out’ name–show only a bit of this sophisticated coloring. ‘Blushing Knock Out,’ ‘Sunny Knock Out’ and ‘Rainbow Knock Out’ have some color gradation in their petals. Original ‘Knock Out’ is a pretty cherry red, but the color lacks depth. It is simply not as emotionally satisfying as some other roses with similar coloration.
And emotional satisfaction is important. My roses speak to me of their individual stories. The Pemberton roses, for example, are the work of an English bachelor clergyman, who bred them in the years before, during and just after World War I. Like David Austin today, Pemberton looked for beauty, fragrance and durability. After Pemberton’s death, his rose breeding efforts were carried on by his devoted sister, Florence, and his gardener, Joseph Bentall. When Bentall died, his wife, Anne, took over the business and introduced my favorite hybrid musk, ‘Buff Beauty.’ Pemberton hybrid musks have also been used as parent varieties for some of David Austin’s best “English Roses.”
The ‘Knock Out’ roses haven’t been around long enough to have those kinds of generation-spanning stories. They were never in Empress Josephine’s garden at Malmaison. No Knock Out ever traveled as a cutting, going from East to West in the covered wagon of someone riding the Oregon Trail to a new life. They were not named in honor of a wife, daughter or even a comely actress. “Knock Outs’ shout “Wow!” while other, older varieties whisper, “I dare you to find out my secrets.”
To be fair, ‘Knock Outs’ rebloom, which is a highly desirable trait. They will withstand a variety of conditions, resist diseases and make novice gardeners feel successful from the very beginning–also a wonderful thing. The breeder, William J. Radler, is a great lover of roses and it is hard not to feel a sense of kinship with someone like that. He developed ‘Knock Out’ to spread the rose gospel to all those benighted souls who thought roses were too hard to grow or too fussy to maintain. He continues his breeding efforts in the hopes of creating even better varieties.
In short, I think that someday a ‘Knock Out’ descendent will come along with the current phenom’s desirable traits coupled with a bit more character and fragrance. If it endures, it will accumulate history and stories, the way brick walkways gather moss. Eventually it will stop shouting all the time and beckon seductively. I have no doubt that it will more than hold its own with the great roses of the past.