Well roses are pretty tough and will grow in even fairly poor soils but they do like a good feed twice a year. What's the soil like at Wandin? You may be ok just sticking them straight in. Try one to start and see how it goes.

it appears to be clay, what now?

My advice would be to buy a load of topsoil or garden soil
first dig in a clay breaker i think you can get spray on types at hardware shops then mix in the load of soil it should cost no more than $50 i think, this way with a raised bed for the roses you minimise the affects of the heavy clay. otherwise i guess a load of sand mixed in would be cheaper but not as nutricious for the roses, thinking longer term the garden soil is the better bet. Happy gardening.

HI FELLAS, WELL NOW I HAVE ARRIVED AND THE WORK BEGINS. THANKS FOR THE ADVICE YOU GUYS. I HAVE BROKEN THE CLAY DOWN OR SHOULD I SAY THE GLUE.I AM GOING TO USE A POST HOLE DIGGER TO LOOSEN THE SOIL & MAYBE ADD SOME LOAM IN THE HOLE, IS THIS OKAY.
JOHN

If your clay is sticky, you need to leave it alone until it is nearly dry-- clods should break (or resist breaking) rather than deform. Otherwise you compact it and make it worse.

A post-hole digger is hard to use on dryish clay. I would use a rototiller or a mattock to mix in imported soil or organic matter all over the area and make a raised bed, as bigmuddy suggests, to create a drainable zone. You don't really need to make deep holes but to create a wide area of fairly uniform topsoil. Maintaining a deep mulch of organic matter will gradually improve the soil over a period of years.

thanks michael, sounds like a good idea the rototiller. thanks to all that sent advice.
john

Once you have all of the clay sorted out, try to get as much organic matter into the soil as possible. In Western Australia where I live, I didn't have a problem with clay, but with very sandy soil. To help this matter, I asked my local lawn mowing contractor to drop off all of his loads of lawn clippings until my roses had about 10 inches of well rotted lawn clippings to serve as a continually breaking down mulch. Prior to the lawn clippings I put down layers of newspaper and underneath the newspaper I put lots of sheep manure and red compost worms. With that as a beginning, the compost worms went to work on the manure and grass clippings and tilled the soil at the same time. I put compost waste from the kitchen under the grass clippings regularly to give the worms food and after 5 years, the soil was completely changed to a black composition, it kept the roots of the roses cool, the roses were extremely healthy and never had fungicide or pesticide on them, they grew really tall and flowered well and needed much less water even in the summer. You have the mound of mulch which some people might not like, but with the worms, both native and compost worms, you might find that they may be able to keep the clay soil broken up sufficiently. Worms are great!