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The Knock Out: low-maintenance and top-selling rose

Will Radler was still just an amateur rose breeder — a basement hobbyist, really — when he walked out of his home in Milwaukee carrying that fateful baby rose in a soil-stuffed cup.

He didn’t realize it then, back in 1989, but he held in his hands a flower with such remarkable qualities that it would grow to be the best-selling garden rose in the country. His creation is credited with reversing the sagging fortunes of the difficult garden queen. Radler’s rose is so hardy and requires so little care that it can be planted in places once unimaginable — road medians, mall parking lots, ignored gardens.

It’s a good bet that any dense bloom of roses in a surprising spot — and roses are at peak bloom right now — can be traced back to Radler’s flower.

“Some things are just too good to be true, but this was an exception,” said Craig Reiland of the American Rose Society, which has stood as the flower’s governing body for more than a century.

Radler’s rose is called the Knock Out. It changed the entire rose industry by emphasizing low-maintenance. It still dominates the market. And it made him a very wealthy man.

Click here to read the complete article at www.stltoday.com
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