If they are sunflower seeds, you will have lots of sunflowers coming up.
Other than that, it should not hurt your roses that I'm aware of...

I used to tell my daughter to dump the bird feathers and dropped seeds from her 3 cockatiels into the rose bed by the front door. Not a good idea. All sorts of grasses, etc. were growing in there. It was a bit of a mess.

Carol :)

While I haven't had any sunflowers grow yet as a result, I have had many other "weeds" show up around the feeder. So, you may not want to do that. :) I will tell you that the grass that grows around the feeder (outside of the seed pile) is the greenest, thickest grass around!

The sprouts from the seed have a very shallow root system; easy to pull out on my morning rounds. Just wanted to make sure they don't alter the soil ph, etc. for the roses. The sunflower hulls actually remind me of a coco mulch I used years ago but stopped using because the smell made me queasy...and hungry for chocolate.
Thanks!

you could sterilize the seeds killing the germ, then the seeds won't grow. I think a 300 oven for 30 minutes or so should do. I know it works because I do this and so does a friend. And, we are assured that the nutritional value is not diminished.

Here is a link that might be useful: heating bird seed so it doesn't grow in your yard

Good advice Mandyrose. Thanks for the link. I just may try the microwave technique.
Susan

The big problem here with bird seed is rodents. The neighbors love to feed the birds but end up feeding a lot of rats as well.

Blech - rats. We don't get rats here. Alberta is supposed to be a rat free province because we have people monitoring the borders, etc. I don't see how that's possible, but then again, I've never seen a rat here.

Carol

That's one thing that I was afraid of---rats! I decided this year to forgo the birdseed feeders just for the summer months, as there is plenty of food for the birds by way of bugs, seeds, berries already. I will now put the feeders out in winter only. I do have the birdbath kept out for summer though.

Yeppers, birds do have plenty to eat during Summer, they really do not need bird seed...

We do not supply bird-seed in summer here.
But we do supply plenty of water for them to drink and bath in. And we get alot of birds by just doing that...lol

When we feed the birds/squirrels, we enjoy our little circus in the back yard. We have very large pretty grey squirrels along with our native (Douglas) pumpkin belly and lots of chipmunks. Of course there is also a large variety of birds and I supply two humming bird feeders. So far we haven't had a rat problem and we live in a very rural bush area. We also have bird baths too. I would miss all the activity as our large windows allow us a great view of all the goings on.

I know what you mean about rats, so we keep a close watch. We have lots of field mice and have been told that if we have lots of mice, we probably don't have rats as the rats would wipe them out - don't know how true this is. We count on all our bird friends to take care of any insects on the roses as we don't use any insecticides.

Have never seen a rat. I have three Wheaten Terrorists, so WOE be to any rodent in my yard. I do see chipmunks and squirrels...and the occ. shrew.

I keep a bird feeder near one of my knockouts through the winter and into early spring. I get some volunteer plants from sprouted birdseed, including an occasional sunflower. I've seen no harm to the knockout, which keeps growing and blooming just fine.