Ha ha - everyone has ideas! I've heard your way a lot and i'm sure it's the right way. When I plant roses, I toss some rose food in the hole and then fill it in with water - my transplants do well, so at least feeding them right away doesn't kill them!!

I don't know whether the nurseryman understands roses or not, but there are experienced growers here on both sides. When that happens, you can assume that both sides are right. Roses will start just fine without immediate fertilizing, but they will not be injured by light fertilizing. Remember that a labeled fertilizer dose is meant to be spread over a square yard, not a square foot. It is calibrated for an average-sized rose, not a small young plant.

It depends on what you are feeding them.
When you transplant them, you've got some woody roots with lots of fine feeder rootlets that are almost transparent coming out of them. The rootlets are going to be damaged when you plant them; it happens and there's not much you can do. BUT if you hit those feeder rootlets with strong chemical fertilzers, you're going to burn and destroy even more of the feeder roots.
IF the rose food is timed release or organics, and underground, that food won't activate until the temperature around it is 70.

Reedrune, you're right; everyone does it differently. I don't fertilize when planting, but wait until I see the rose has settled in and I see new growth, or about one month.

I use RoseTone and alfalfa tea, and the roses thrive.
-terry

All I put in for my roses when I first plant them is compost mixed in with the surrounding soil. After a month or so, I add fertilizer, but I'm not adding any fertilizer, organic or not, except for the compost soil mix it was planted in for my Quietness rose to see how well it will do. It's blooming profusely & is healthy so far this spring. It should eventually land on the list of EarthKind roses.

I usually fertilize when I plant any shrub, including roses, but I always use an "organic" fertilizer and I don't fertilize heavily. I use an organic one because it isn't immediately available to the shrub. It must first be decomposed by the soil's microorganisms. I figure during that time the shrub's roots are establishing themselves and putting out new feeder roots so that by the time they are in full growth mode the fertilizer is now available to give them a boost.

Oh, and I also don't fertilize much or at all if I'm planting in the fall (beyond perhaps a handful or two of bone meal). I don't want to stimulate new top growth then and fear fertilization would likely do that.

I normally mix in a product called "peat humus with composted manure" to planting holes. Its more soil conditioner than fertilizer, but manure is a light fertilizer. The Rose Tone comes a few weeks later. My roses are big and strong.

I also put compost manure and peat humus in my holes. Then fertilize later also and my roses do very well.

I use super phosphate in the hole.

Many potted roses sold locally already have some kind of time-release fertilizer in the pot, so no additional is needed for awhile. I don't fertilize these until after the first bloom.

I fill up the hole halfway with dirt, sprinkle (a small handful) some Rose Tone, water it in, then fill up the hole. I then sprinkle some more Rose Tone and some alfalfa meal, scratch it in, then finish off watering it in.

Eric

I agree with AnnTN...it ALL DEPENDS ON WHAT you are feeding your newly planted roses and what your new roses are--young own root roses, baby bands or the usual grafted variety picked up straight from the nursery... Chemical fertilizers are a big, huge no-no! Organic liquid fertilizers are fine if they have been diluted. I have found that all! my roses hugely benefited from a super-dilute mix of Garden-ville sea tea, that I feed to them. I feed them immediately after planting. The younger the plant or if it is an ailing plant when I receive it, the more dilute of a mix I feed--anywhere from 1/6 of the normal dosage up to 1/10...feeding every 4 days. It has done wonders for me! But I also found if it is the usual "pickup from the nursery type of rose", those are actually the fastest roses that can be returned to the normal dosage (less transitioning time-- usually within a week-and-a-half, they are ready for their normal "prescribed" fertilizing time and dosage). Baby bands on the other hand must always be fed super-dilute mix once a week and this will only be increased when they have reached enough size and maturity...

Again it all depends on the fertilizers one uses and the condition of one's roses! that is the key issue here...