Looks like you are doing very well. Some insist ideal soil should contain a bit of clay too, but your sandy soil might provide all you need. I add a bit of seaweed meal or seaweed extract every year, it looks like it helps sandy soil hold moisture better. It's not something I think you absolutely need, it's just different options. I also use mycorrhizal fungi in the planting hole, at least where I know the soil never was cultivated or was particularly fertile. They come in different brands and products like Rootgrow. If your roses are very slow to establish and doesn't do well this can make a big difference. Good compost, the kind you are using, should contain lots of beneficial micro organisms.

A few years ago I was in contact with a Florida sandy soil rose grower who said that he added several cups of the cheapest, non-scented kitty litter (the ingrediant label should say clay product or calcined clay) to each planting hole. He said that this helped hold water in the root zone.

Since bagged "topsoil" is usually some kind of compost, you may be planting in pure organic matter. Roses will grow in that, but it burns away in time, and you could get some nutrient imbalances in such an unnatural soil, or actually, soilless mix. Also a 5-gallon hole filled with muck and surrounded by sand might restrict the rooting area, almost like the roses are in 5-gallon pots. Moisture levels between the muck and the sand will differ sharply.

I would prepare a wider area 12" deep with a mixture of sand and organic matter at 2:1 and add 10-15% clay (don't overdo). Plain kitty litter is prime clay with maximum retention of water and nutrients. I've started adding it to my sandy silt loam.

Amending of planting holes was being noticed as not producing a benefit by the late 1960s. Plants in pockets of amended soil do not grow as much, at first, as the same kinds on the same site planted without amendments. This is due to the deleterious effects amending of planting holes often has on how water moves into and out of amended planting holes.

The next phase in improvement of planting practices appears to be bare-rooting at planting, so that plants are not placed in the ground in pockets of potting soil (or clay-like field soil) surrounded by differently textured planting hole backfill soil.

Ken, I'm glad Michaelg posted so I won't sound like a nut. :)) I agree about preparing a wider area so I just dug the whole bed out. I removed about 5"-6" of sand in order to fit the amendments (and to get rid of it). I wish I had known about the kitty litter when I was digging my beds. I get free composted horse manure locally so I use that now, but I've used the bagged cow manure from Lowe's/wherever. (Unfortunately, Black Kow is a little pricey for me.) I also use Fafard Soil Conditioner which is finely ground pine park. It's my preference over peat moss. Alfalfa about 4 cups per 10 sq ft, same amount of Milorganite (earthworms love it), Rose-Tone about 3 cups, epsom salts about half cup. You may have to hunt for it, but I added Greensand as a source of potassium which is supposed to be deficient in Florida soil. It's very slow acting. Maybe it seems like a lot of nitrogen, but there's also a lot of carbon going in. My soil pH is about 7.0 so I add soil sulfur. (In the hole I add alfalfa, milorganite and 3 clumps of bone meal around the bottom.) And I use mycorrhizae (soil microorganisms) when I plant each rose, available at Amazon.com.

I have one more bed to prepare when it cools off, and I'm going to line the bottom with newspapers, leaves, pine straw, whatever to try to retain water. I know it will rot and migrate down fairly quickly but it's better than nothing. Just as a point of interest, I had to dig a deep hole (3+ ft deep) last spring in a bed I had been amending for more than two years probably to a depth of 12" - 15". I didn't hit sand until I got 3' down. The organic matter had traveled that far down in that time. It is always traveling down. That's why we replace it (or add to it, euphemistically) every year. Since I only have two roses on Fortuniana, I was/am very concerned about nematodes which thrive in Florida sand, plus my native soil was pathetic gray compacted stuff that resembled cement, so that's why I did so much excavation and replacement. When you're ready to plant, your bed will still look like sand with some dark clumps/areas scattered around, BUT in six months I had totally black sandy soil. And now I even have crumbly soil. Very cool! One thing someone said somewhere is that you do need good topsoil because of the minerals that are in SOIL that are not in sand and organic matter, so that is a very good amendment. The roses really do love that new fluffy soil you make.

Sherry

A picture is worth a thousand words.
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Have fun.

Sherry