I love Knockouts though! I hope they do not develop a canker or disease from over use.

If properly used I still see them as a part of good design.
I chose to plant lots of them for color.

The ones below have been planted for one year.

There are Leylands in the far left of the pic that I check weekly for canker.

Luckily I never planted Bradford Pears. At our last house all our neighbors had them and every time we had an ice storm, my husband was picking up all the Bradford limbs that had fallen from their trees onto our property.

Actually the KFC landscaping looks good. It is a new building all red and white and you notice the red roses a block a way. It is eye-catching!

ANd Fran took care of a whole bunch of Bradfords...the only good thing about that rotten hurricane. Could somebody ask Fishel to order up a storm that takes out the Bradford pears and leaves house and human unharmed? Is that too much to ask?!?!?!

I have some Stellas from a friend, so I just put them with purple blooming perennials. That works fine enough for me.

I have planted 'Joan Senior' daylilies with Shasta 'Ice Star', 'Broadway Lights' and Angelonia 'Lavender Pink'. I'm hoping it will be a good combo of yellow and white with a dash of lavender. I added a pale yellow daylily, but the name escapes me right now.

Cameron

KOs with clematis and lavender:

Stella d'Oro opened yesterday beneath the Japanese Maple.

My yards were designed, pretty much in my absence, by a team who had sat down w/me and just let me ramble (as I'm inclined to do! :o) ). In CA I'd inherited a rose garden with all its assorted problems, told the garden elves I didn't want roses - too much work. They came up with the KO and they were right (as usual). The KO's are great.

Glad also to see mention of the Stella d'Oro daylillies. As pedestrian as they may be, they are troupers and were part of my low maintenance install from the start. Now they are huge and sorely need to be lifted and divided, but they have never disappointed me. They just keep chugging along despite the neglect. This fall I'm really gonna dig and divide - honest!

zig zag, I am glad you posted. I wondered if they would look as good a few years down the road.

I have had KO's for many years and love them. I like odd things in my garden too, but it's good to have a few bloomers that are as carefree and prolific as some annuals. To me the original hot pink single is the winner, although I also have blushing, rainbow and double. The flowers are bigger and brighter, contributing to the desired splash of color in the landscape.

BB's here in Sanford have Weeks' Home Run. It is quite different from KO in form and has an American Beauty red color. It's completely BS free and blooms constantly.
I've enjoyed mine.

Lots of people at the garden center at Lowes think roses should look like roses, i.e. hybrid teas, but they have no idea what is involved in getting them to thrive.

I've been buying Griffith Buck's from the lady at the Raleigh farmer's market. She'll tell you which ones are disease free. Earthsong and Prairie Harvest are, totally.

I have a few Austins and they all have different issues, so it's great to have troopers like KO's and these others in the mix.

Anyone know any others that are disease free? I might be off topic here.

claire

I just planted a rose parterre garden this past spring with OGR roses. This fall, I noticed two of my new roses have developed RRD.

There is a hotel in my city that has RRD on all their Knockouts.

My neighbors also have roses with RRD.

I am trying to educate everyone near me that has RRD on their roses what is is and what to do about it.

I am afraid with the over planting of shrub roses and lack of knowledge of RRD, the disease is becoming more widespread.

It's very scary and it amplifies my concern that the creation of KOs was for the lazy gardener or the non-gardener whose yard is maintained by non-gardening landscape crews.(Not calling those of you who have them 'lazy', but the marketing of KO's as carefree is designed to appeal to non-gardeners)
I just think anytime one plant material is grouped closely as they are in these KO hedges, it improves the development of disease and insect vectored disease.

Over the past two years, my small garden areas have been attacked with the oddest of viral caused 'weirdness' of growth patterns. Rudbeckias have opened with fully tubed petals, some have had conjoined stems. The vitex, the easiest carefree shrub tree has had wicked witches broom growths and only hard pruning, way back taking off three year's growth, enabled it to finally sprout leaves from all branches/twigs.

One or two of a perennial or permanent plant spaced farther apart than we are doing now (instead of these prescribed groupings of 3-5-7) may be what saves our gardens from disease.

I see so many subdivision entrances with KO roses and I am fairly sure that the landscaper does not know about RRD.

I had no clue about RRD until I saw info here and compared photos of RRD to my roses.

I planted KO roses to create color in my yard against the backdrop of many evergreens.

I am wondering if I bought a KO rose with the disease not knowing it and now it has spread.

I have around 45 roses and about 70 percent of them have RRD.

Oh, the KFC that I mentioned in my post in 2008 no longer has the KO roses. I wonder why?
All the other plants are still there.

So, questions I have are if you notice RRD at your favorite garden center should you chance buying a rose that appears not to have been infected?

What comes first, leaf deformation,sudden appearance of hundreds of thorns, redness and witches brooms developing?

Trouble with KOs is how they're marketed..plant and forget.
So no regular inspections are done that would detect a problem with virus or insects. All newbies notice is JBs.

I am holding off buying any more roses until something is developed to kill the mite. Cygon2E is used but it is hard to find, expensive and you must follow directions exactly to prevent breathing it in.

Thanks to anntn6b for educating people on the subject.

As far as the symptoms, On my latest rose, Ebb Tide, the leaves started out red, narrow and twisted.It already had the twisted witches broom look.

Round Up can mimic RRD symptoms but I do not use Round Up.

On the first rose a couple of years ago, I saw the classic symptoms of RRD but did not know about RRD. I thought my rose had a crazy mutation and I left it that way for a year until seeing a photo of RRD on GW.

I immediately took action but it was too late.