Shrub Rose 'Home Run'

Home Run is one of my favorite shrub roses. It amazed me last summer by its' bright color, disease resistance, and prolific blooming!!! ...Read More It never stopped! In our area it is great, and perfect for those who want a low maintenance rose.

I have two of these bushes that I bought on an impulse due to the wonderful vibrant red blooms. The bushes are in partial shade with afte...Read Morernoon sun. They stood the Kansas heat and drought very well with occasional watering. There was a nice flush of flowers in the spring, sporadic small flushes of flowers in the summer, and one more nice flush in the late fall (see photo). The color was not as good during the hot weather. There is a slight rose fragrance. Disease resistance has been perfect (no disease symptoms at all) and the foliage is beautiful. My only real disappointment with this rose is the flower display. Many flowers do not show all five petals with good form; something is often missing or distorted. Maybe it's just the summer heat because the form improved in October. The disease resistance and flower color are truly outstanding and I can strongly recommend this low maintenance shrub rose.

I just aquired this rose and will post more after growing it.

From Weeks roses Home run web site:
This flame-red...Read More offspring kicks the competition up a notch when it comes to disease resistance. Home Run has a phenomenal fortitude against the dreaded black spot (like its father). But, unlike Dad, it is also completely resistant to powdery mildew. Rounded, bushy, fast-to-flower and nearly always in color, it hits a grand slam in the landscape & scores lots of points in a pot, too.
Height / Habit: Medium / Rounded & bushy
Bloom / Size: Medium, single
Petal count: 5
Parentage: (City of San Francisco x Baby Love) x cv. RADrazz
Fragrance: Slight
Hybridizer: Carruth - 2006
Comments: Coast to coast. it's the cleanest. Deepest red in cool temps.

Home Run Rose History

When Knock Out® (cv. RADrazz) was first introduced as an AARS winner in 2000, we immediately grabbed it as a parent because of its fantastic black spot resistance. As is the case with Murphy's Law of hybridizing, the variety soon revealed itself to be completely female sterile, but the pollen was viable.

One of the many females we used that first year was an unnamed pink blend seedling out of City of San Francisco crossed with Baby Love . Despite its bland pink color, it carried the genes for red and/or yellow coloration from its parents. It also had great resistance to powdery mildew plus the potential genes for strong black spot resistance through a completely different bloodline (via Baby Love ). So the goal was to achieve either a red or yellow seedling with resistance to powdery mildew plus a double dose of black spot resistance from different sources.

It's 'Dad' is plagued with powdery mildew on the West Coast....and it passes that susceptibility freely to its offspring. From the 288 seeds achieved in the cross, only 3 survivors showed themselves to be clean in the greenhouse and the field. Only one was red; another being pink; the third being white. The pink and white were not up to our level of quality so they were dropped. The red baby soon showed itself to be superior in the qualities of habit, color, floriferousness, etc.

With only 10 plants, we took a chance (knowing the bloodlines) and moved the propagation level up dramatically so we could quickly find out if the variety would own-root successfully. It passed our prop tests with flying colors. So now it was time to see if the level of black spot resistance met our expectations.

Those original 10 plants were distributed to our most trusted nationwide testers, our salesmen. Yes, believe it or not, our salesmen actually do grow roses. The second round of precious-few plants were sent out to a group of private growers and a few public gardens strategically located throughout the U.S.

The first year of evaluations came in very promising. But we knew the second year would give us the true test. So during the wait, we continued to madly propagate to get the numbers up should the variety prove to be worthy of introduction.

First spring reports were great…but a lot of roses look good in the spring. Yet it was the Fall reports that made up our mind to move forward. The red ‘kid' was showing itself to be just as black spot resistant as its ‘Dad'.

While the third year of trials continued on and more plants were distributed for broader evaluations, we began to make the moves to introduction. It was our President, Charlie Huecker, who suggested the name, Home Run – the equivalent of a knock out in another sport. The name was a natural for this showy red seedling.

The good reports on Home Run continue to come in. We are very confident in its black spot resistance and total resistance to powdery mildew. We did learn that the variety is very quick to flower and repeats at a very short cycle (about 30 days). On average, roses take 40 to 45 days to repeat.

Like its parent, Baby Love , Home Run seems to never have a huge flush of flowers. There always seems to be some fresh new bright red flowers showing up against the dark green leaves.

We also learned that Home Run appreciates a light shaping versus a deep pruning. In its first year, the plant will send out some strong shoots as it establishes its mature habit. These may look out of balance at first, but as the plant matures it will fill in to a nice rounded bushy habit.

On average, it takes ten years of testing and multiplication to bring a new rose variety to the market. But we were able to bring Home Run forward in an unprecedented six years by using our nationwide group of highly experienced rose testers. Its success as a variety and ability to rapidly own-root allowed us to make such a gain in valuable development time