just thought I would share this; picture of the circle I maintain for the cul-de-sac I live on. Planted in 2007; this is the absolute best second bloom I have ever had (pretty close to the initial one in May). I have fed a few times with Alfalfa, Soy and Milorganite, but did that in prior years as well. Maybe it was the raw milk from April.

Those on my property aren't looking as good as those. Must be something about the heat radiating off the street, etc. Last year the heat shut them down completely in July & August. This year has been 1.5 degrees colder on average in July (and similar amount in June), maybe that's the ticket.

MorpheusPA wrote:Could be. I have mine at the back of the property and one in the garden, and those never seem to take much heat slow-down. This has been a good year for roses so far, too!

I also cut my big one back in June when it completely went misshapen. My bad, it should have been done in March. Next year I'll cane it much earlier, as it slowed things down.

I'm not expecting this bloom to amount to much in hundred degree weather no matter how much I water...

Two years ago my wife spent an entire day deadheading all 21 of those roses in the circle, the rebloom was terrible. Knockouts seem to like having their old flowers hang around.

That center area looks really awesome. How did you come to maintain that area? Seems like you already have a lot on your plate with your own flower beds!

For about 6 years that circle was a pile of dirt and weeds, when it came time to plant it the builder didn't want to deal with irrigation. I offered to irrigate it from my property knowing that there was no way we would have anything respectable in there without water.

Then the builder finally planted it in a terrible design with a bunch of crap; the only thing they did do was scoop out the awful soil that was there and bring in about 8-10 inches of topsoil. For about 6 years every piece of construction equipment was parked on there and it was a dumping ground.

Anyhow, after a year of looking at the terrible job the builder did I just went out there one morning and started pulling stuff out and re-arranging. It was in September so I got the shrub roses cheap. After about 15-20 hours I got yelled at for spending so much time, so the next time my perennial guy came over I had him finish it up. I did everything up to the shrub roses, he took care of the outer ring (other than annuals which I do every year). This year the big change (which I did last weekend) was to rip out the blue mist shrubs which were behind the roses. I replaced them with 10 hardy hibiscus that should grow up an over, that will give us some great late summer color.

In the fall when I clean it out I usually find at least a dozen wiffle balls and all other interesting things from when the kids play in the street.

Great story JG, thanks. I hope your neighbors appreciate all the work you put into that.

andy10917 wrote:Jon, is that the circle that you had a ton of sedges in last year? If so, how did you finally win that war?

This year I hit them early with Tenacity. There were some that were growing in spots that I just couldn't spray well that I pulled. I wish I figured out my funnel system, it works much better than the sponge (that didn't work well).

Relentless Tenacity (like 4-6 times over 3 weeks) seems to have taken out 90% of them (at the expense of some annuals, it was worth the sacrifice). Tenacity seems to work better than Certainty.

Those shrubs look good. They probably love the temps you are having up there. In St. Louis, it is a bit hot for the roses and my blooms are burning up pretty quick.

I agree with everyone here. Knockouts (and many other shrub roses), in my experience, don't care to be pruned much. I'll take off spent blooms on mine, but I remove them just under the bud and don't cut back the cane.