Feeding and Watering your rose.

Feeding and Mulching
Roses are greedy plant and like plenty of nutrients. Compost is really not sufficient to ensure strong growth and healthy leaves.   A clay soil will need the addition of a rose fertiliser twice a year, in March (after pruning) and after the first flush of flowers is over (usually late-June to July). Roses growing in a sandy or chalky soil will need feeding monthly from March to end-July - a small handful of rose fertiliser will help or you can use liquid rose or tomato fertiliser. For repeat flowering roses, the summer fertiliser is important in promoting a second flush of flowers, but also strengthens the plant and helps prevent disease. 

Roses growing in loam soil will benefit from feeding three or four times between March and the end of July. Mulching is a good practice: garden compost, leaf mould or well-rotted manure will keep the moisture in the ground, but bark chippings are best avoided.

Watering
Roses will tolerate a dry soil but thrive best in a moist, well drained soil. If the ground is dry, water well occasionally. Little and often watering is best avoided. Rose growers find watering in the morning or keeping the leaves dry reduces incidence of disease and avoids the flowers becoming damaged by the sun on water droplets. 

If your rose is in a container, make sure to water well during hot dry weather, and if you can keep the planter or container slightly shaded, that will prevent the soil drying out too much. Don't forget, most roses need at least 4 hours of sunlight to ensure that the flower well, so just shade the pot and not the rose !