Congratulations on your great garden!

There are lots of things that you can do for roses and lots of books written on this. You might want to search for some good sites.

The best place to start is with a good organic fertilizer, just do what the package says. They sell a good one at Home Depot. Also, Fish Emulsion is good for a pick me up for roses.

Also, roses like bananas. That was the best advice I got when I started.

The organic compost is good too.

you are on the right track and are sure to have a great garden!

One of the best things you can do for the soil and the roses is to buy a bag or two of alfalfa pellets 50# (horse feed). Broadcast over your flower beds a couple times a year. Chop up fallen leaves and use in flower beds. Add compost whenever available.

The roses you call wild are probably old garden roses or antique roses. There is a forum on garden web for people who love these old roses. Check it out.

Here is a link that might be useful: Antique rose forum

I'd guess the dark red roses are the rootstock variety Dr. Huey, which blooms only in spring and is susceptible to disease. It comes back from the roots when something happens to the grafted upper part of the plant. If you find you enjoy tending roses, you might want to replace these eventually.

If the white patches are fuzzy, it is powdery mildew. There is currently a thread on the Antique Roses Forum front page, and other threads here if you skim back. If the white patches are shiny, it is rose slugs eating off the underside of the leaf.

The most important thing you can do is give the roses enough water, maybe 6 gallons a week during hot weather.

Lacking a soil test, apply any general fertilizer according to the instructions for shrubs or roses. Roses use the same nutrients as other plants.

Keep an organic mulch of some kind on the soil under the canopy. Compost would be good. Do not dig it in, as the feeder roots are very shallow. If it is very rich compost with manure and grass clipping included, it might serve as fertilizer.

I have a similiar question about some compost I got from our local Ag center (free and they load, quite a deal) I have gotten mixed reviews from local people on it's readiness...some say it is still curing, others say they use it and have had no problems...the people saying it's still curing tell me to let it sit for a few more months or it could burn my plants....the ones who have used it, report no problems....so with that confusion....I'm considering still putting some out on my roses like the post above recommends. It is a manure based (horse and cow etc) with lots of other organic material...it's a pretty fine consistency and very rich & dark looking (maybe I"ll try to post a photo) anyway, does anyone have any experience with places like this that give compost away...I do know that they go through it pretty quick, so chances are it really has not been there too long in general. I certainly dont want it to burn my plants??? PS: my new container roses that were planted recently were put in with Rose Pride systemic stuff, and blood meal and I used some good top soil that I had delivered when we had our lawn put in. And I started spraying with Bayer Disease control last week for the first time...Interesting enough, BEFORE I sprayed everything looked pretty good, was getting blooms right off, new growth etc. NOW I'm seeing BS...sad, sad, sad, but I'll stay on the spraying regime, mabye it will get caught up.

rjinga, if you don't know how long this has been composting or what exactly is in it, I think I would judge it by the feel and the smell. How does it smell? If it smells like plain black soil it's good to use. If it has a sour smell or if you can still get a whiff of manure let it rot a little longer. Just mho.

Bean counter,
thanks for the tip...you'd think I was a city girl or something.....well, I'll tell you that for the most part (I unloaded the truck and was up to my ankles in it) that it really didn't smell too "fresh" more like dirt...however, I was out there working on plants, watering etc. and it was a pretty hot day, and I got a few good whiffs of horse pooh...so I'll have to do a closer sniff-spection and see.

Don't forget coffee grounds. Starbucks gives them away and they are excellent

The 'wild' roses are rootstocks as stated above. Dig them out.

Your soil is probably alkaline adobe clay. I gardened on that stuff for decades. Fertilize after every bloom cycle - about every 6 weeks, but stop feeding in September. Use a rose fertilizer and dig it in and water well.

Clay soil should be watered slow and long and not very often - once or twice a week with a long slow soaking should do it for old roses like you have. I used to have a Ross Root Feeder to water the older bigger roses - a long thin stake that attaches to the hose and delivers the water deep underground, where the roots are. Hard to get water deep enough in clay soil. You can get fertilizer cartridges that go in the top and the fertilizer dissolves in the water and is delivered to the roots.

Compost is great for clay. Any organic matter, really. Nice thick layer on top, let the worms work it in. Worms like cardboard and coffee grounds too. I would dig it in a little bit myself, not too worried about shallow feeder roots with roses. Rhodies and camellias definitely but not roses so much. The roses will appreciate the extra mulch now, to cool the soil.