In order:
No.
Excellent, does best when deadheaded (hedge clippers work well).
Very resistant so far for my brother who grows it with no care in Philadelphia.
Unchecked, 5' tall, 3' wide, but can be kept smaller.

Thanks Diane!

I like my Home Run much more than my Knock Out. It blooms more and has better disease resistance. The blooms don't fade much at all and they drop their petals cleanly so you don't even have to dead head if you don't want to. It's had great winter hardiness too. My plant gets about 4 by 4 feet in size.

I agree with the other posters. Just wanted to add that it is VERY THORNY! SHARP THORNS too!

Kate

Agree with all the above.

if you are undecided between 'Home Run' and 'Knock Out', suggest you choose 'Home Run'. The color is a much better.

Also, 'Home Run' is much more resistant to powdery mildew than is 'Knock Out'. or any of its sports.

As far as thorniness is concerned, we grow OGRs and Hybrid Musks, and compared to many of those, this one is a pussycat.

.

But don't forget that pussycats have CLAWS! And Home Run certainly does also. LOL

I'm not disparaging Home Run. I have 3 and like them marking the borderline between my yard and my neighbor's yard. However, no one is going to be tempted to take a shortcut between our yards if it leads through the roses--or at least not tempted more than once!

Much better color and bloom than Knock Out, unless you don't like singles. I like its truer red color. Knock Out is more cherry red.

Kate

I have 2 Homerun. I don't love them and have often considered moving them, but they are a good rose and worthwhile in the garden.

Does color fade much in the sun? (No, but the blooms will take on some whitish tones from the inside near the end of their cycle and before they fall cleanly off the bush. They also don't last long on the bush in heat.)

Bloom power? (Blooms heavily and repeats very quickly.)

Disease resistance to BS? (Very. To both BS and mildew. I replaced 2 Europeana's with the Homerun's 4 or 5 years back now because Europeana was so susceptible to mildew.)

Size of bush in zone 5-6? (Here it is a 3x3 or 4x3 shrub with minimal pruning. It has decent winter hardiness and does not require protection.)

Hi kate:

Our 'Kathleen' (HMsk) stands sentinel next to our electric meter, and the meter reader won't go near if we forget to cut her back. And we don't blame him/her in the least - it's lethal.

Sure, 'Home Run' has thorns that can be annoying. But some of those other ones are like lions and tigers with GIANT claws that will tear you up. It's all relative.

Wow thanks everyone! :)

One more question?.... How does Home run like to be pruned?

Jim,

I just cut off any deadwood in spring and then prune a little for general shape.

Mine was a late season buy from an Agway that I think neglected it - on black pavement, no elevation for pot, near traffic, and it looked stressed. But the color is my daughter's favorite, she had just gotten engaged to a baseball fan, I figured it was supposed to come home. I planned to nurture it and give it to her when they bought a house.
It died.
But two years ago I was given an OSO Easy rose, Cherry Pie, with many of the same positive attributes. It is now in a giant pot on my deck, since it really isn't the right color for any of my rose gardens. If daughter doesn't want it, I'm keeping it as a deck plant, wintering it in a ditch under protection.

I've never done much pruning on my Home Runs, but I never had any sense that it was touchy about the subject. If it kind of juts out awkwardly at an undesirable angle, I chop it off--but mostly I let it grow because I want it to form a more definitive hedge-like division between my property and my neighbor's.

To tell the truth, I've always had the impression that you could take electric shears to it and cut however you wanted--like you can with its distant second cousin Knock Out--but I've never actually done that.

It's pretty tough, in my opinion.

Kate

Thanks!

I've grown Home Run in hothothot Texas and in notnotnothot NC, and in both places it started slow and continued slow, with absolutely no issues. It is great in a large container. I used a huge galvanized metal trough meant for watering horses so that the flowers on a (short) trio of rosebushes were closer to eye level. Works great.
Those galvanized troughs from Tractor Supply can be primed and then painted to please. They come with a drain spigot which i leave permanently open. Makes a real nice small display garden...but not cheap at the initial invedtment

It looks like Cl Altissimo I just purchased.

I love my Home Run roses extremely healthy nice deep rich red. Always in flower if dead headed occasionally. About 4 by 3 foot here if in a good 8 hours of sun.

Summersrhythm, the blooms are close to the came color but Altissimo's blooms are about 3 times the size of Home Runs. Altissimo also usually blooms one per stem where as Home Run blooms in very full clusters of 5 to 8 blooms per stem. I know it doesn't look like it my photos but underneath those first terminal blooms are clusters of buds about to open.

I have not tried Home Run yet... Only because I discovered I like double bloom roses best.... But who knows what the future brings....

I grew my red Home Run roses in Pasadena, California. There, it is the custom to prune all roses severely in January, removing all leaves and cutting down the height. They grow back to bloom in early June. Home Run wants to bloom so much, the flowers came out before the bush was fully leafed out. It was literally never out of bloom from then on. Many lovely red flowers that don't fade. Although the petals drop off, you will want to deadhead once in a while, and prune a bit in the late summer, as the old flower heads detract from the appearance.

I have the rose pic attached. I wonder whether it is Home Run or Top Gun.