I grew up with dog roses and I adore them. They is something delicate about their blooms, something soft, they peek at you with those golden stamens and make you want to bury your nose right in the flowers. The hips arguably even more gorgeous, almost red, and they're tasty. There is such subtle variety of color for dog roses, but it's the open shape of the flowers that is so inviting: http://tinyurl.com/6h8yt7c Knockouts? Are nothing like that. They look exhausted. They look excessive. There is such a thing as too much, too bright, too loud. I know they're easy to grow and I don't mind them where appropriate: parking lots, along highways, softened with grasses or other plantings. I hate them in parks, they seem to fix time into some extended, unnatural June, so much that they tire me out. Give me seasons, give me some evidence that plants aren't made of plastic. But then again, I hate daylilies too, so take all I say with a grain of salt.

I tend to garden in a bikini top and shorts. It's hot outside, I like to tan, my plants don't care and neither do my neighbors. And, honestly, I wouldn't stop doing it even if they did care. We all have bodies and there is a big difference between being nude and being inappropriately sexual. It is high time people learned to differentiate the two.