Bred from Knockout roses, Home Run rose is extremely disease resistant and in my mind one of the best new red roses for the garden, should you be comfortable with single roses (which hopefully you will be). Knockout roses, both the original and offspring such as Pink Knockout roses, are extremely disease resistant and a laugh (in more ways than one) to grow. It says something about the toughness of Knockout roses when highway departments begin planting them…see this photograph of some ridiculously healthy knockout roses as proof. Home Run roses share the basic good qualities of Knockout Roses, but also offers up lovely lovely red roses of single-form. Five scarlet petals surround bright yellow stamens. True red in the landscape is always welcome.

Introduced by Weeks Roses in 2006 (Knockout roses were originally introduced in 1999), Home Run is claimed to have super-sized resistance to blackspot, downy mildew, and rust (the big three)…now if they develop a rose resistant to Japanese Beetles we’re home…man those Japanese Beetles can test the best of our good nature. Fragrance is slight and roses are deepest red in cool climates (or in the South, on the shoulders of summer). Home Run will provide continuous waves of red roses througout the active growing season.

One final comment about Knockout roses in general and Home Run in particular: A poster over at Gardenweb in a discussion about Knockout roses criticized Knockout roses as generic and went on to suggest imagining a row of Mutablis roses in the garden. I basically agree with the point (after all, do we want roses preferred by highway departments?). But…first, we should consider the value of Knockout roses for their own merit as a garden rose. It’s not the roses’ fault (unless we can blame their good quality or the marketing departments at Star and Weeks Roses) that they are so often-used. Secondly, there are many gardeners, new rose gardeners especially, that do not have access to Mutabilis roses and are faced in their new hobby with the current offerings of Lowe’s or Home Depot.

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