Sunny Knock in Los Angeles Times

In today's LA Times, Kathy Van Mullekom writes about Sunny Knock Out:

New Sunny Knock Out rose coming to town

I will never garden again without having Knock Out roses in my yard.

It's been a rough year in local gardens, including mine, but the Knock Outs have performed superbly.

They've weathered the drought, need no sprays to keep them disease free and produced hundreds of blooms without removing any old flowers.

What more can you ask for? Hopefully, more Knock Out roses, including a yellow-flowering one called Sunny next year.

Sunny Knock Out opens to a medium yellow, and over time it becomes more pastel and eventually gets a pink tinge to some petals.

Steve Hutton, president at Conard-Pyle, Sunny's developer says this is not the Yellow Knock Out that many anticipate -- that's still in the works.

"As you know, yellow is the most difficult color to get disease resistance in a rose," Hutton says in a recent NMPro, the Weekly Nursery Management and Production e-newsletter. "This one has the disease resistance and garden performance we want, but not the true yellow color. That's coming, though."

If you have Knock Out roses in your garden, I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. I never remove old flowers and use only shears to prune them back in late February. No special pruning technique is needed, just cut them back about 12 inches above ground and watch them perform magnificently again. Since mine are relatively new, I may not prune them this coming year.

You'll find Knock Out roses at all location garden centers, including Lowe's and Home Depot. Many are on sale and fall is a fine time to plant them.

Copyright © 2010, Newport News, Va., Daily Press

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