I don't amend my holes. I guess it might depend on soil and rose types. For instance, if I still lived in Florida where "soil" is really just sand I'd amend, amend, amend a giant barrel-sized hole. Here in Missouri my soil is on the clay side, I grow roses grafted onto multiflora for the most part (it grows wild here) so I don't bother to amend. I also don't bother to amend own-root roses though.

Mine all do fine, however, the thing I spend most of my time on is researching which roses do well in my climate. I personally think that's the key. If the rose is a disease magnet to begin with or unsuited to the climate I don't think any amending will change that.

I amend the entire bed(s). A layer of composted manure over both beds every fall, covered by a layer of cedar mulch. By amending the hole, you run the risk of creating "the bathtub effect", where too much water is held in the hole.

I thought the bathtub effect was caused when one broke into a rather impervious subsoil like clay, but I could be wrong. However, I think Diane is quite right in intimating the dangers of changing the native soil too much because it will behave quite differently amended: retain too much water, or too little, just like not wanting to put layers of different things in a pot because water will stop at one and not easily drain to another.

Steve

Steve

I don't amend. I've got clay soil on a hill so the clay actually helps keep moisture on the hill instead of everything running off. I started off not amending mostly because I was lazy. My roses do fine :) I have cedar mulch on top and use rose tone occasionally as fertilizer.

I used to top dress with stuff (I do mulch still), but last year I discovered a miracle. It's called regular watering. Who knew!

Seriously, I'd put in a bird bath so had to drag the hose out every other day to fill it. During that time I'd splash...not even deep water....3 roses that were along the path, two of which (an Austin and a floribunda) I was considering shovel pruning. Lo and behold, they busted out in growth and bloom and very little BS all summer long. Maybe they just finally matured, but I think it was the watering.

I amend planting holes and entire beds and areas, and because the soil is very sandy in places it gives noticeable improvement. I still use bonemeal when planting, I use all organic fertilizers and solid phosphorous travel sloooow in the soil. Like with any soil results does depend on the nutrient level in the soil.

If you dig a large hole, poor in a bucket or two of water, and it disapears in 10 minutes or so you don't have to worry about the pool-effect during heavy rain. Any thing that will loosen the soil is good in my opinion. If the water isn't gone after 15 or 20 min you need to worry.

Mulching and spreading compost on top of the soil will change the soil. However it takes time and have to be done regularly for years to amount to anything; a decade even to be able to change the structure of clay soil. If you have the chance to grow plants like buck wheat, red clover, alfalfa, and even potatoes as green manure, it will help change the soil much faster. Even if you mulch, remember it really doesn't guarante nutrients for the plants, and fertilizing must not be forgotten, especially for reblooming roses. Chicken pellets are often the easiest and least costly alternative, and helps a lot with the nutrient levels.

Some of the scientific tests that indicate amending soil in planting holes is a waste, were done in parks and areas that are very different from the situation in the garden, where plants are watered, fertilized and cared for in a different way.

Working to improve the soil, growing different plants and amending it regularly every year is really the most important thing to make the soil more fertile. I promise you, it is no mistake !!!

As you know, well composted organic material is very good for the soil and plants, and any mulching material will turn to good compost given time. Because woodchips and bark aren't always thoroughly composted, it can have adverse affects on the soil and roses; like more blackspot and fungus diseases. In addition it actually consumes nitrogen in the process of braking down and that makes additional fertilizing even more important. If you don't have any problems with fungus diseases to consider it is all right to mulch with just about anything. If you are in an area where fungus diseases is a problem, stick to well composted organic material.

Some clays are naturally high in nutrients and minerals, and roses grow well with just a minimum of fertilizer spread around the roses. Some clays are lacking in just about everything and it can be a struggle to make plants grow. However given time, and effort all soils will get better.

I hope at least some of this was worth mentioning ;-)
Best of luck and Regards

In my so-called "gravelly loam" soil ("someone" forgot to mention it also has a hefty amount of clay) and where much of what could be considered topsoil got removed around 40 years ago, roses planted in amended soil generally do better. I tend to amend whole swaths. I don't amend for native plants or fruit trees, as these do better without. I think one might consider the adaptive landscape of modern garden roses, especially if not grafted onto wild rootstocks. These are not plants whose capabilities were shaped by natural selection in the wild!

I'm quite a proponent of ammending. In fact I've never heard anyone say to NOT ammend, you can always do better than what nature gave you! The only thing to not do is just ammend exactly around your plant, ONLY because you should be doing the whole bed! i.e. doing just a little around your plant does nothing if the roots/water/nutrients get bound inside that small area. Just don't do too little should be the axiom! Here are some shots of how I've improved my back yard. Enjoy. Bill

Here is a link that might be useful: My Garden Ammendments

Our soil is a soft clay soil type. I have never ammended a planting hole and have never had a problem.
I do top dress though.

As everyone said - it depends on the soil and also the size of the plant when you put it in. I don't worry about the "bathtub effect" but I might if I had dense clay. In my case, it's really crappy soil that never grew much for over 100 years, mostly fill, and that had a lot of dog urine for many many years. So first roses I amended the holes and I dug huge holes. Recently I've removed a few of the roses for various reasons and they're always well sunk-in, no problems with the roots, and in fact I end up with new roses where I don't get all of the roots, sometimes quite a distance away from the initial plant.

That's contrasted with one of the roses I removed about 12 years ago when I bought the place - it had obviously been purchased out of a place like Home Depot many years earlier but the entire root ball was curled around itself. Since mine are almost all own-root that I've purchased or started myself, and they were planted when small, over the years they seem to find out how to take care of themselves.

We moved to Florida 16 months ago, and the stuff that passes for soil here is nothing more than black sand (the soil in our hard in NJ was wonderful, but 15 years of amending it will do that). We've been digging large holes, mixing some of the 'soil' from the hole with mushroom compost and peat moss, plus composted cow manure, adding bone meal to the hole, backfilling with more mushroom compost and peat moss, then topdressing with topsoil before mulching with red mulch. This is really our first year doing so -- I only planted 8 roses last year, and used mostly rose soil and compost in that bed.

I've arrived at a compromise. I'm getting lots of composed horse manure from a friend--these are from the fields, not the stables, so they're just kiwi sized dried up nuggets. I'm going to bury 4-5 nuggets under every rose as fertilizer, plant in the clay soil, and then top dress with municipal compost.

I'm trying to figure out the best way to dig the hole without messing the 6-8" of leaf mulch on top. I figure I'll push the mulch aside and use the shovel, then replace the leaf mulch after I've planted. But maybe I should use a bulb planter instead? That would dig a smaller hole, just big enough to plop in the own-root potted rose. Thoughts?

You don't want a smaller hole. A rose seldom grows much outside the hole it's planted in. Rose roots are lazy, growing first into the lose soil in the hole provided. The feeder roots are in the top 4-6 inches of soil. Sometimes they just circle around the hole especially if the soil doesn't drain well.
I get best results mixing horse manure with the soil removed from the hole and placing it around the bush not under it. Not to worry about burning as horse manure has very low NPK numbers.
I got the best digging results using a post hole digger.
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I end up with straight sides and as deep as I want. I make the hole 12 inches wide minimum and half again as deep as the plant's root ball, even though I don't place an own root rose much deeper than it is in the pot. I just amend the soil under and around the roots.

My "soil" is sugar sand--like white builder's sand almost. I dig a hole knee deep and 3x3 feet, put a couple of inches of kitty litter in the bottom, and fill with composted horse manure. I let that rot down for several weeks and refill well above the natural soil line. In that second batch of manure I mix alfalfa, cotton seed meal, kitty litter, and any other organics I may have on hand. I wait another week or so before planting the roses. I also top dress the entire bed with horse manure and top that with newspapers and wood chips. Even though horse manure is low NPK, you cannot fill a hole with pure horse manure unless it has been composted for quite awhile. It starts to cook and will literally cook your rose. Ask me how I know this. You can top dress, however, with green manure, and you can use green manure if you mix it with your native soil. Just don't fill the entire hole with green manure.

This is a huge amount of work, but my beds are now compost-like soil about a foot down in the older beds. The newer ones only a few inches deep has been significantly improved. It does take time.