First blooms of Knockout seedlings

Knockout makes a good landscape rose. I find it disease free and vigorous. Easy to use in breeding because there is no need to emasculate or worry about raising extraneous seedlings (because there is limited pollen/self-fertilization).


Look closely and directly behind Knockout is a street and sidewalk and two parked cars…and if you look closely, peak bloom is over and lots of flowers have already shattered. A rugosa with some hips can be seen at the bottom left. Knockout shatters easily and is not a good cut rose.

I recall harvesting about seven seeds. Knockout’s seeds are absolutely huge ball like things with real wood.

About five seedlings resulted. I killed two in transplanting and gave one seedling that resembled razzle-dazzle away…and so I have kept two seedlings. These were sprouted in Jan/Feb so they are about eight months old. I believe the pollen parent to be ‘flirtatious’ for both.

Seedling #1


Resembles Mama in the dark green leaves and lack of pollen. Shatters like mama also.

Seedling #2



This one resembles dad more than knockout. Lots of pollen. Flower held for ages (but blued badly).

Both are fragrant but bleached horribly.

These are the 2nd year pics (and I can’t pick just one either) of the two sister seedlings of ‘Knockout X Flirtatious’ cross.

(‘Flirtatious’ on helpmefind)…yellow from ‘Sunsprite’ and stripes from Mr Moore…

First Seedling:

This one is slightly susceptible to BS but still far better than ‘Flirtatious’ in this reguard. You could see Mr Moores stripes in last years premature flowers but not this year. It also changes colors similar to ‘Flirtatious’. Each new flower has a few more petals than the last so I guess it’s still developing.









Seedling 2:

This one grows like a species rose on steroids. No signs of any disease susceptibility. Completely evergreen. Nice bud form but it only opens to a single and I think it’s gonna stay that way…but if you like singles then this is quite nice. Oh, and this year it doesn’t blue anymore- it turns into a nice dark pink. I think it’s a notch up from ‘Home Run’ at least.













…and just to be on the silly side here’s pics of two little ‘Robin Hood’ seedlings from this year:

One is redder than ‘Robin Hood’- almost to the point of being violet (my camera does not capture reds well) and the other is white:



And speaking of Mr. Moore here’s pics of his ‘Mariposa gem’ (just to show some competition):