Read About Deadly Disease Affecting Knockout Roses

Love your 'Knockout' roses? Read about the deadly disease that threatens to kill them all.
Enough color to knock your socks off - that's 'Knockout' rose. Photo by Steve Bender.Introduced in 2000, 'Knockout' rose quickly became the best-selling landscape plant in the country. It had everything - showy, continuous blooms; compact growth habit; tough-as-nails constitution; and, best of all, no need to spray for black spot disease. But now, nature has tossed green kryptonite into Superman's garden. And 'Knockout' rose may just get its bell rung.A Deadly Threat
'Knockout' rose (the original single red, shown above, plus a bunch of newer colors) owes its uber-popularity to the belief that it's the first "no maintenance" rose - perfect for the lazy gardener in all of us. People think it needs no watering, spraying, pruning, or fertilizing - EVER. It's like an actual living plastic plant. You just stick it in the ground and it will bloom, bloom, bloom with zero care from you. How marvelous.Unfortunately, this belief is dead wrong. 'Knockout' does need water, fertilizer, and pruning. And now it's facing a disease so serious that its very survival is in question. Rose rosette disease. - by Steve Bender
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