In 2000 the horticultural world turned upside down with the introduction of a new rose.\u00a0 Its registration name was \u2018RADrazz\u2019, but it became known to the world as \u2018Knock Out\u2019.\u00a0 Sixteen years later, it is probably the most popular rose in the United States, if not the world.<\/p>\n
On the face of it, \u2018Knock Out\u2019 appears pretty but not extraordinary.\u00a0 The flower petals have often been described as \u201ccherry red\u201d, with five to fifteen per flower.\u00a0 Categorized as a shrub or landscape rose, \u2018Knock Out\u2019 grows up to four feet tall and wide, but can be kept smaller.\u00a0 Supposedly it has a light, spicy scent, though I have rarely detected any scent when the blooms have come near my nose.\u00a0 On appearance alone it cannot compare to real beauties of the rose world, like peachy-pink \u2018Abraham Darby\u2019 or \u2018Sally Holmes\u2019, with its gorgeous, single white blooms.<\/p>\n
So what is all the hype about?<\/p>\n
\u2018Knock Out\u2019 has been touted as the closest thing to no-maintenance rose.\u00a0 The subject of many rose trials in many places, it has proven to be pest and disease resistant and able to thrive under a wide variety of conditions, including light shade.\u00a0 It reblooms prolifically throughout the season.\u00a0 Texas A&M University included it in their list of Earth Kind \u00ae roses, signifying that it met their stringent requirements for superior performance without the need for chemical intervention.\u00a0 It has lived up to most of the hype, getting along fine in situations ranging from the well-tended rose beds of botanical gardens to the frequently-neglected median strips of large shopping malls.\u00a0 Homeowners from Bakersfield, California to Bangor, Maine have grown the shrubs successfully in flower beds and large containers.\u00a0 Anyone anywhere can grab a \u2018Knock Out\u2019 off the shelf at the local mass merchandiser, take it home, plant it in a reasonably sunny spot and get decent results.\u00a0 In full bloom the flowers are cheerful and eye-catching.<\/p>\n
It is hard to begrudge a rose with that many virtues.\u00a0 However, I will never grow it.<\/p>\n
Life may be full of sunny days\u2014unless of course you live in England\u2014but my yard is not overflowing with sunny space.\u00a0 Any rose worthy of taking up some of that sunny space must have rare beauty, fragrance and the ability to survive on a diet of neglect.\u00a0 Since \u2018Knock Out\u2019 does only one of those things, I can\u2019t find a reason to include it.\u00a0 For fragrance I would rather tickle my nose with the likes of \u2018Zephirine Drouhin\u2019, a rose-pink climber with an intoxicating scent.\u00a0 In my yard, at least, the plant is untroubled by black spot or mildew.\u00a0 Its climbing habit means it takes up fairly little horizontal space, which is another plus.\u00a0 The blooms are elegant and appear several times over the course of the season.\u00a0 It also beats \u2018Knock Out\u2019 on another count\u2014thorns. \u2018Zephirine Drouhin\u2019 is virtually thornless, while \u2018Knock Out\u2019 has plenty of thorns.<\/p>\n
\u2018Knock Out\u2019 has great utility as a landscape shrub and is often planted en masse for dramatic effect.\u00a0 From the marketing materials, you would think that it is the only rose suitable for this purpose.\u00a0 This is untrue. One of my favorites, the fragrant hybrid musk \u2018Buff Beauty\u2019, works nicely as a landscape shrub, combining toughness, good looks and vigorous growth.\u00a0 The buds are yellow with just a hint of peach and the flowers open pale yellow, aging to white.\u00a0 I have never sprayed mine for any reason other than to repel deer and it has flourished for seventeen years.<\/p>\n
By the way, \u2018Knock Out\u2019 may not get black spot, but it is no more deer resistant than any other rose.\u00a0 Mr. Antlers and his vast family clearly have not read the advertising copy.<\/p>\n
To my way of thinking, \u2018Knock Out\u2019 and its many progeny, all of which bear the \u2018Knock Out\u2019 name, have no romance.\u00a0 Now, a rose cynic or a \u2018Knock Out\u201d vendor might counter with the argument that there is nothing romantic about a rose that needs excessive coddling just to produce a few perfect flowers.\u00a0 That is absolutely true.\u00a0 But intelligent rose lovers have always found shrubs that rank high on the scale for beauty and fragrance scale and low for maintenance.\u00a0 \u2018Golden Celebration\u2019, one of the best of David Austin\u2019s English roses, bears repeated flushes of golden roses on extremely vigorous bushes.\u00a0 If you buy \u201cown root\u201d rather than grafted bushes, the shrubs will even grow back true to type after the top growth has been killed by hard freezes. My \u2018Golden Celebration\u2019 even came back strong after Hurricane Sandy, when high winds tore off its strongest canes.<\/p>\n
\u2018Knock Out\u2019 boasts of continuous bloom and it may have an edge over other reblooming varieties, producing more flowers more regularly.\u00a0 This is a plus in a landscape setting, but not so important that I am willing to sacrifice the romance provided by reblooming varieties with a slightly smaller output.\u00a0 After all, if I want roses that are always in bloom and perpetually perfect, I can buy plastic ones.\u00a0 All they ever need is dusting.<\/p>\n
The choice, of course, is up to every gardener and there are no bad choices if you are happy with the end result.\u00a0 My avoidance of \u2018Knock Out\u2019 roses will have absolutely no effect on global sales and will, in fact, leave more for the people who love them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 2000 the horticultural world turned upside down with the introduction of a new rose.\u00a0 Its registration name was \u2018RADrazz\u2019, but it became known to the world as \u2018Knock Out\u2019.\u00a0 Sixteen years later, it is probably the most popular rose in the United States, if not the world. On the face of it, \u2018Knock Out\u2019 … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3,5],"tags":[1388,731,1386,1385,1387,521],"class_list":["post-1859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","category-winter","tag-earth-kind-roses","tag-fragrant-roses","tag-knock-out","tag-landscape-roses","tag-reblooming-roses","tag-shrub-roses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1859"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1860,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1859\/revisions\/1860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}