Ive used it in the past..

I find just as good results with composted manure , plant tone , alfalfa pellets. IF you really want them to grow, tons of compost all the time =).

However, 10 - 10 -10 is ok. I dont worry about the rain here, but then again, I dont usually water until august or so, and then for a couple of weeks.

No, I don't use a chemical fertilizer in spring.
I put an organic fertilizer on when it's convenient for me and that's when I prune. By using an organic, I don't have to be concerned about how warm the soil is or how much moisture I'm getting. Because it breaks down slowly and that breaking down is dependent on warm soil and soil organisms, it sits there until conditions are good and then does it's stuff. Chemical fertilizers will dissolve when there is lots of moisture and might be washed away before it does much good. I'd rather have a slow acting fertilizer that lasts than a fast acting type that can burn newly forming roots.
When I was learning, I killed more roses each spring with chemical fertilizers than I lost from winter kill.
By pulling the mulch back when I prune, it takes me a little longer but I get the fertilizer mixed into the soil and I get it all done in one pass.
Usually by spring the mulch is decomposed quite a bit and needs refreshing anyway.
If you start taking shortcuts your roses will eventually show it.

I'm not sure the lower cost is worth the hassle. I use liquid fertilizer when it warms up--with our heavy clay soil, I think most of it sticks around the roses. Typically two or three light applications a year work just fine.

I don't use it either. Organics down when I prune, over the mulch, if there is mulch (there isn't now). Water solubles once the buds form. Another application of organics after the first flush. Maybe another app of water soluble if I remember.

I like to use organic slow release also.

I used 2 lbs of 18-24-16 at the end of May and another 2 lbs of 15-30-15 in mid July for 150+ roses.

When I first started gardening at all, I didn't even know there was 'organic' fertilizers. Now, that's all I want to use on any of my plants. No more chemicals! Although, I can't say that's fully true because I did use Bayer disease and just a couple of times last season. But, then only when it is really needed. In fact, this year I just bought my first leaf compost bin! I am starting with making leaf mold. We'll see how that goes first...

10-10-10 (12-12-12 or whatever) is water soluble and will wash through the mulch with a good rain or watering (say an inch). Depending on the nitrogen source, some of these will lose N to the atmosphere unless they are either watered in promptly or scratched lightly into the soil (no digging, please!) under the mulch. Usually the mulch is thin in spring, so I try to get a fertilizing in before applying fresh mulch.

Plants can't use nutrients until they are leafed out. Nutrients applied before leaf-out can be lost through leaching unless the soil has some clay and organic content. Even then, nitrate nitrogen can be lost.

Some fast nitrogen applied at leaf-out can be useful because soil bacteria haven't been working in the cold wet soil to convert proteins into urea. Fast N comes from chemical ferts, chicken manure, or blood meal. High-nitrogen lawn fertilizer is good for this (1 TB/plant). It is mostly urea and highly soluble.

Since my soil is not high in P and K, I apply a handful of 10-10-10 once a year, usually a while after pruning, as some leaves are greening, before adding fresh mulch, along with alfalfa.

I like to use 10-10-10 in young garden soil for several years. After a few years, the soil matures a bit, and here, we no longer need the additional potassium and phosporus. My roses grow in a more mild climate and will have leaves by early February.

I don't use 10-10-10 on my mature garden soil, which lacks only nitrogen and calcium.

I use a little in the Spring for all the reasons Michaelg mentions. My soil is very cold in the spring and while I have lots of organics to put down nothing much is happening even though the days are warm. I see improvement with that little Nitrogen boost to my repeat bloomers. I doubt my Gallicas care since they have plenty of composted manure but they get some too...no jealousy.

patricia

What kind of organic fertilizer do you use? Or, do you mean grass clippings, shredded leaves, compost and manure? Or a banana peel here and there? :-)

Redsox
I use my own organic mix but have used Mill's Magic Rose Mix in the past. The other stuff you mentioned is also used but more as a soil amendment than as a fertilizer except for the manure. While amending the soil, they do break down, releasing nutrients, but very slowly. The organic mix, being smaller particles and richer in nutrients will supply them faster than all but the manure.

Espoma Holly-tone. I might still have a half bag of Mills Magic Mix around, but Espoma products are local, and easier to buy. The "tones" do contain a fast-acting nitrogen, which is why I use the water soluble (mostly Mills Easy Feed and fish emulsion). Add alfalfa and kelp meal. And the liquid seaweed with the fungicide spray.

I hope to have some more compost to help with soil amendment next year, but I'm lazy, and there isn't a lot in the little bin.

I use alfalfa meal, which is about 3-1-2. The number that really counts for the soil here is the first number (nitrogen). Our soil has plenty of everything else.

It all depends on how organized and ambitious I am--and some years I'm not either one. The years I'm not organized I just grab whatever is available--which sometimes means a balanced fertilizer (like 10-10-10). Ideally, however, I remember to stock up on one of the "Tones" (RoseTone, PlantTone, etc.--my local garden center only carries PlantTone). I might add also manure and/or alfalfa pellets--or I might do one or the other later. When it comes time for the second feeding a month later, I often switch to a time-release fert (with balanced numbers) just because it gets too hot here to be crawling around under rosebushes to feed them all summer. However, this year I'm going to make a real effort to use monthly feedings of Rose- or Plant-Tone and manure. In fact that is my New Year's Resolution for 2010. (Unless it gets too hot????) LOL

You do know to feed out to the dripline, don't you? Just thought I'd check, now that your roses are getting bigger.

Kate

Kate, I do know about the drip line but thank you for checking! So, you would use RoseTone as often as once monthly? I am not as ambitious. :-(

Last year I put down 10-10-10 in May and only used RoseTone once during the whole summer.

When you put down the alfalfa pellets, do you throw those down or scratch them in? Thanks!

I do use 10-10-10 in spring. Never had any issues with it. I put Rose Tone in March after pruning, but wait with 10-10-10 until rose leaves are approx. 1-2". Works really well this way. I just scatter it in my beds, like chicken feed, no digging. My roses are interplanted with other plants (perennials, annuals, shrubs, et), so everything gets it.
Olga

Redsox
You do know that alfalfa pellets are rabbit food? Used whole they can attract rabbits, and horses if you have any of those running around loose. I use the meal but in the past I used pellets but poked holes with a spading fork and placed the pellets in the holes, then covered them up. Even then, when they get wet and swell, they can come out of the top of the holes. They're in meal form by then and a little difficult for rabbits to eat. I gently scratch the meal or organic fertilizer into the topmost portion of soil/mulch. The sooner it gets wet and makes contact with the soil, the sooner it begins to break down and releases nutrients.

Deb, check the directions on the "Tones"--if I remember correctly, they recommend monthly treatments. Whatever they say, is what I do--last feeding in mid or late August. That does sound like a lot of feedings, doesn't it! Hmmmm--maybe I'll go back to a "Tone" for the first feeding, followed a month later by the timed-release stuff, with alfalfa and manure snuck in there somewhere along the way.

I scatter alfalfa pellets (out to the drip line) and then turn the hose on to a stiff spray and water them in until they start breaking up and becoming somewhat mushy. Obviously I make sure I didn't thoroughly water the plants a day or so before that. Then I cover up the area with mulch (or sometimes manure and mulch). If I could find alfalfa meal, I'd use it instead, but so far haven't located any in my region.

As for the other plants in my gardens, I usually use the cheaper 10-10-10 and reserve the more expensive "Tones" for just the roses. Other times I use timed-released stuff on my other plants. In other words, I'm very "flexible." LOL

Kate

I use year old horse compost, then cover with new mulch when I prune. A chemical buzz of generic flower food after first flush, alfalfa in July and another chemcal buzz in August.The Roses seemed to like it and the other flowers did too.
I had Roses flowering until November 15 this year. and they were as healthy as I've ever had. My garden is only two years old so it's just coming into it's own.

In my opinion, the instructions for Rose Tone call for overfeeding-- not necessarily a harmful amount, but maybe twice as much as is needed for good growth by a medium-sized rose. Since it is mostly slow release, feeding every two months should be plenty, except maybe in very sandy soil.

If alfalfa is put on top of the mulch, it will release potassium but not much else. N and P would become available very slowly, as the mulch rots into the soil. You probably wouldn't get the triacontanol benefit.

Last year I put the alfalfa pellets in a bin and wet them so they broke up into meal. Then I used a spading fork to pull back the old mulch, spread the alfalfa, and mix it slightly with the loose soil. This was reasonably easy and fast.

The Tones already contain alfalfa.

For what it's worth here is what I do.
I buy an organic alfalfa based pellet fertilizer made locally in Kansas City called Bradfield. I put one or two cups to the dripline of each rose and just lightly scratch it into the mulch. I don't pull the mulch back at all, just scratch the pellets lightly into it all the way to the dripline.
Then immediately, I use my EZ-Flo Fertilizer Injector filled with my John's Jungle Juice recipe and hook it up to the drip irrigation system I have installed in each bed. When I turn on water it goes into the bottle of the injector and dilutes and mixes the Jungle Juice and sends it down the drip irrigation to each roses own watering shrubbler. There the water/fertilizer mix begins wetting down and mixing with the alfalfa pellet fert and it all eventually makes it's way down in the soil to the roots.
The fertilizer in the injector is usually completely out in about 2 hours or so and I just leave it going with just straight water for another hour or so to soak the fertilizers in and water the roses at the same time.
I do all this about 3 times per growing season April-September/October depending on the weather forecast. I don't fertilize at all after October so the plants aren't encouraged to add new green growth that will get killed by the impending freezing temps that start in December.
My roses love this technique and are as healthy and vigorous growing and blooming as they can be. Going into wintertime it is very important that your roses be as healthy as possible and have no disease issues as well. I rarely ever lose any roses to winter and I don't winter protect very much or many roses at all.
I just rely on the natural leaf fall from two large oak trees to gather in the rose beds in the Fall. In Spring I use my leaf blower and blow out the leaves. Then I gather them and put them in a large metal barrel and use my weed whacker to chop them up fine and then spread some of it all over my rose beds as mulch. It makes an excellent mulch and it only costs me a few hours work rather than real money that way.
This system works for me quite well. A master rosarian visiting my roses this past Fall accused me of using steroids on my roses because they were all so large, vigorous, and healthy, so I was quite pleased and feel I am on the right track taking care of my roses and making them the best that they can be.
Just my two cents.....
John

From jont1: "Just my two cents"

I dunno, John, I think we only got a penny and a half! What's in your Jungle Juice recipe?