Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Why does everyone in McLean, Virginia love Knockout Roses?



I have been in the residential landscape design and install business for 22 years and in all that time our footprint of work has stayed constant. We work in McLean, North Arlington, City of Falls Church, Vienna and Great Falls. When I meet with a potential client for a landscape design consultation, we work through the various categories of landscape install. As the conversation focuses on plant material, almost without exception the client gives a list of criteria that they want their planting job to meet. The top three things on that list are always 1) lots of color, 2) low maintenance, and 3) hardy. The Knockout Rose gets an A+ in each of those categories. 

Other than needing a significant amount of sunlight, the Knockout Rose is foolproof. It's inexpensive, it grows quickly and produces an enormous amount of color from Memorial Day to Thanksgiving. I cannot think of another plant which produces more color over a longer period of time. The Knockout Rose comes in 7 different varieties, ranging in color from dark red through violet to pink, and there's even a yellow Knockout Rose.  

After 15 years of cross-breeding, in 1988 William Radler created the Knockout Rose. It was not until 2000 that the Knockout Rose started to gain recognition, and since then it has become the most popular rose and one of the most popular landscape plants among all plant material. Regarding the Knockout Rose, William Radler himself said, "Despite the great possibilities for failure, the burdensome work, and the lack of glamour, my hobby became a passion. Even with successes, it didn't take me long to realize that growing roses would be more fun if it entailed less work."

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