It has taken me three seasons to figure out what my roses love and what will keep them happy. Whew! I have several different kinds of roses including heirloom , climbers , hybrid teas , floribundas , rugosas , and miniatures. In the fall I defoliate them before putting them to bed. I know that sounds tedious but it has helped alot. In the spring I use a feeding mulch consisting of composted horse manure , bonemeal , and alfalfa pellets. We have heavy clay soil so I use a thicker mulch because the soil gobbles it up quickly! During the summer I foliar feed/soil drench with maxicrop and fish emulsion as well as compost tea for disease resistance. This year we had a lot of rain and colder weather so my roses were getting disease-ridden. I tried a new product called "serenade" that I found at walmart. I had heard about it on the Mike Darcy gardening program. It literally stopped disease in its tracks. You need to use it every 7-14 days. It cn be used on perennials and annuals too! It was not harmful to beneficials in our yard or our cats. My roses bloom heavily from May thru October. One last thing.....The one thing I don't like about hybrid teas are their shape. As an experiment , I tied down the stems of my "Tiffany" through a wooden chair and horizontal to the ground. WOW! Not only was the form prettier , but I had 3 times the blooms too. miraclemama