I prefer the EE roses to the KO's & there is a link to another GW discussion of them below. I have changed my opinion on Sweet Fragrance as it finally took off last year & it was a stunner.

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Here is a link that might be useful: EE discusion

I have Easy Elegance "Grandma's Blessing". It has multiflora parentage and hates my alkaline soil. But the glossy foliage is nice. Thank you for the above pics. They are very nice.

We had frosts this month. My Knock-outs' leaves got nipped with frost, but not Easy Elegance. If my soil is acidic to neutral, I would NOT even plant Knock-out, there are many better choices like Easy elgance or Flower Carpet.

Ive never seen one in a retail nusery here, KOs our king at the retail box stores, even local nuseries who know better, dont sell anything else, I talk to one or two nusery I know, and its basically.. its the only thing people ask for to buy, so he sells them. Drives me nuts, literally, instead of educating the public on what works, they just give in.. Im not really anti KO, im more pro.. what works where you live. KOs on the whole are only slightly hardier then a hybrid tea here, there is a business that has like 40 planted, every spring I drive by and half of them are dead, they just replant them every year. ..

BTW I WISH nuseries would stock ramblin red, a much hardier and nice northern rose that should be more available to the public.

There is not such thing as one plant for all the country.. I wish they would stop selling junk advertisement like that, its like in the old days when they sold CURE alls and people believed it.

Oh well..

The EEs definitely have more variety of form I think. I love that Funny Face!

EE and KO varieties are both nice and durable. Personally, I prefer Canadian explorer and Buck roses for disease resistance, durability, and obviously...looking like a rose that I want, but my Austins never have issues surviving in z5b, so I haven't had much incentive to try the "more durable" roses. They are fascinating though every time I see them at the Columbus Park of Roses in the Earth Kind garden.

I'm supposed to be Z5 (on an island in St Lawrence River) but my KO's keep getting winter killed. I've been advised the Explorer series is the way to go - hardier than the EE. Now to try and find Explorer locally - nobody local has ever heard of the EE's. Frustrating.

I grow a number of Easy Elegance, primarily because my favorite local nursery started carrying them several years back; Sweet Fragrance, High Voltage, Superhero, Hot wonder etc. They seem to make good shrubs, with some (High Voltage I'm talking about you!) being almost too vigorous for the space allotted. I've blogged about several of them but right now Sweet Fragrance is my favorite. None of them seem to require spraying here in Kansas, but Superhero does get a little blackspotty for me.

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden Musings Blog

Please could someone tell me about the height and width of a mature 'Sweet Fragrance' The Bailey EE site does not always give that info. ALso curious about the size of 'Kiss Me' if anyone is growing that. Thanks!

In my z4 garden, Sweet Fragrance, usually grows only about 2 ft tall & a little narrower in width, but one year it made it to about 3 ft tall...I wish it was a little more vigorous, but it does come back well after each winter & always is healthy.

I would prefer anything over a Knockout rose! I haven't tried and EE rose but the pictures above are breath taking!

Deb

Hi Deb--nice to see you------I love anything that will survive in my neglected garden----

Florence