Twice a year a throw a fistful of nitrophoska gold, a balanced slow-realease fertilizer. I grow about 140 roses, so I could never dilute anything.
PS: chilpete, new roses are happy too

I use Peter Beales Natural Rose Care made by Organic Plant Health Care in NC. It is a 3x a year feeding program. I scratch it into the soil water and that is it. I also use fish/seaweed emulultion in between feedings, but it is not nessessary. I do it because the majority of my roses are grown in containers and they seem to do better. But my roses in the ground only get the PB Rose Care.

Liz

The notion that you should only use liquid fertilizer for the first year is a crazy superstition. Soluble fertilizer is as apt to burn as anything else, but no fertilizer should burn if you follow directions (which implies one fertilizer at a time, don't double up).

Dry mixed organic fertilizers are very good. I'd recommend Espoma Plant Tone, which has a better analysis than Rose Tone and is a better value. It uses the same ingredients.

Recently I've been using (per medium rose) one cup alfalfa pellets and 1-1/2 oz (small handful) cheap 10-10-10 applied under the mulch in spring and at midsummer. In between I apply 1 TB regular Turf Builder on top of the mulch and watered through (urea is highly soluble). This is a cheap and effective regimen that doesn't involve much labor. Add 50% for roses 4' or wider. I wet the alfalfa and wait for the pellets to break up before scumbling it in and then watering.

I use alfalfa meal for my 85 roses and all their companion plants. I spread it around the plants and water it in. In about a week I'll see new canes start to grow and buds start to come up (of course I live in sunny southern California). I don't feel the need to use anything else and this product is completely organic and also inexpensive. I buy big bags from a feed store and store it in a plastic trash can where rodents cannot climb up and eat the alfalfa meal.

Use a large trash can to mix large amounts of water-soluble fertilizer (like Mills Easy Feed). I also use Espoma Holly-tone.

I tried using an E-Z Flo automatic fertilizing unit on my irrigation system, but I couldn't get the amount of the mixture to be consistent.

I use Rose Tone in spring (cup per bush) plus 10-10-10 once or twice per year. Just a handful, don't even bother to put it under mulch, just broadcast it. I do it for everyhting not just roses, all beds get sprinkled with granulas on the top of mulch.
Olga

I use whatever organic granular fertilizer I can get cheapest at the time, whether it be Mills, Dr. Earth, or Rose Tone, and I apply it every 8 weeks. I also apply alfalfa tea to all the roses a few times each summer. In between feedings, I use fish emulsion and maxicrop (seaweed) added to my spray regimen. Doing this over the last few years has convinced me that my roses appreciate a good foliar feeding every now and again.

I just picked up a fresh 50# bag of alfalfa pellets from the feed store for $12. I'll use it to brew some alfalfa tea and will then spread the used 'alfalfa sludge' around my roses a few times throughout the year.

so far so good.

My fertilizing program is specific to my soil and climate:
Roses and other plants absorb nutrients at molecular level and don't care in what form they come. I have heavy clay soil, quite rich in nutrients, so I add homemade compost and cow manure to all roses early in the year to loosen the soil a bit but this manure is rather poor in nutrients. Remontant roses get an extra boosting in early summer with any cheap liquid fertilizer but not after the longest day or early July at the latest.

Cotton Bur Compost
Fish Emulsion
Liquid Seaweed

Randy

I used Jackson & Perkins "Once" fertilizer until it was replaced by 'Dynamite" This is high nitrogen with a lot of extras. Gets the roses off to a great start, and could be used only once or twice a season. However, I also use Miracle Gro Rose food for foliar feeding, Bandini Rose Food, Alaska Fish Emulsion (the family and neighbors love that one), and Home Depot's steer manure blend for 0.98 cents a cubic foot, a couple of times a season, Seems to work well, along with regular watering and no spray (except for water and foliar feeding).

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Last year I moved away from the Bayer 3-in-One and Miracle Gro "crack"-type stuff and started using alfalfa pellets (the horse feed kind)--about two cups scattered around the base of the rose, along with 1/4 cup epsom salts, scratch it all in, cover with mulch at pruning time. So far I haven't noticed a huge difference, but I'm trying it again this year, so we'll see--my roses are pretty young, for the most part, and they start out every year pretty small due to our hard winters, so I'll never see dramatic California-type growth to judge by. I have also put down Holly-Tone (about 1/2 cup) around each rose this past week, figure I'll do it again first week of July for late summer/early fall flushes. Every year feels like a brand new science experiment.

I use warm casting but I tried rose alive from garden alive last year which my roses didn't care for. I have clay soil and try to use earthright twice a year to help break it up. So I'm going back to worm casting but will also try mushroom stuff this year. Its was recommended by a rose expect in my area.

Like Olga, I broadcast some 10-10-10 for everything early in the spring. I also add two cups of our rose society's own organic meal (similar to Mills) in May, and again in July. If necessary, I'll use an organic tea during the summer for a boost.