Knockouts have very good attributes. They make a great landscape rose. They are very forgiving to disease, pests, drought, and gardeners who don't know what they are doing. I purchased these from the co-op, last year.
This is what they looked like May 2012. I don't remember exactly when I purchased them but I hadn't been gardening long so it could have been a month two earlier at best since I got them. They are planted next to Paradise roses. It's very hot, dry, sloppy place along the driveway. However, they do receive some morning shade.
One year later. Thanks to the backyard project I haven't been attentive. However, they are on an automatic watering system that seems to have worked well. That is in the post, Installing a very simple automatic watering system DIY
They are not my favorite roses because they don't make the best cut flower. But after a year, I have grown to love them. They were my first bloomers this year. I have a post called Kudos to Knockouts
I have approximately 8 knockout roses. These are double knockouts that I am showing. I believe they are called "double" because of the number of petals. For more information on Double Knockout's, click HERE.
6 comments:
Knockouts became so popular after they were introduced that it became almost the only rose you could find, some places.
If I want cut roses, I cut a long stem with several blooms of red Knockout for a bud vase. They last a long time.
They make a good show with Loropetalum at their back.
I only have some of single red, one pink and a Sunny Knockout.
I initially didn't care for them..but with a touch of experience under my belt, I have discovered how very forgiving they are.
Butterflies -- generally only adult Monarchs migrate to warmer climates for the winter. Other butterflies spend the winder as pupas (Chrysalis) or some few in the south just hang around in warm places or as caterpillars. Adult butterflies live from a week to a month, generally, unless a bird catches....
I mostly don't worry about where they are, just have food ready when they appear.
You will never see an exotic butterfly outside an area where its host plant for caterpillars grows. In theory, you could buy or borrow some kind of non-local butterfly and release it. It will live at most a month and never reproduce if there's no host plant.
Uncommon butterflies show up when there is food and host plants available but only if they're native to the area.
I worry about insecticides on the crops here and on farms around us but there's little I can do except maintain buffers of small woods and fallow land.
When you mean host plant, do you mean like this? I have a cassia plant and last fall there were caterpillars all over it much to my chagrin..but they were all the same color...yellow and black I believe
Host plant, caterpillers, yes. Did you let the caterpillars on your cassia turn into Yellow Sulphur butterflies?
If you see caterpillars on your roses, they are usually some kind of moth not a pretty butterfly.
I have no idea what they turned into but I was amazed at how many there were.
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