Jeff, I shouldn't even reply on your thread because I garden in sand and you garden in clay. I do water new roses everyday for about a month. And, well, I also water established roses daily. :)) I changed my watering habits last fall when I learned that daily water keeps leaves on my bushes (!). I'll keep it up unless they start looking water logged, but I don't think that will happen. I'm hoping the water is getting down deep. But since I don't think it's evaporating and the soil under the mulch is damp, I think I'm OK since eventually all water in Florida drops out of our bottomless ground. Be thankful your garden has a bottom and holds water.

Sherry

Once our roses are established, we don't water them. We have clay and mostly have old and older roses, though the same rule applies to my husband's modern Hybrid Teas. If it rains, the roses bloom; if it doesn't rain, they don't bloom. (If it rains too much, like this year, the warmth-loving roses don't bloom either.) Roses are drought tolerant.

Depends on the weather. If it's 100+ and hasn't rained in a month, I'll water 2 times a week (usually- if the well runs dry they go without). With my drip irrigation each rose gets 1 gallon of water per hour. I'll water for a 3 hours or so each time.

But I haven't had to turn on the drip irrigation yet.

I'm with Melissa. Established roses definitely don't get any water, and new roses don't get much if any--some have had no more than an initial watering in to settle the planting soil. Our "soil" is clay with rocks (or is it the other way around?). With the relatively mild winters here, if I plant bands in the fall when our rainy season starts, they get plenty of water from the rain and are established enough that they don't need any water by the time the dry season rolls around. By the time things really dry out, the once-bloomers are pretty much done. Repeat bloomers may sulk a little bit during the driest part of summer, but then I get a fall flush. Other perennials can take over during the dry part of the year.

We try to do very low impact gardening. One of the main reasons that I grow roses is that under my conditions I can grow them without supplemental water or spraying (if I grow the right ones). If I had to water and spray them, I wouldn't grow them.

Even if water is locally abundant, I think it's sensible to let some roses go semi-dormant during summer drouth. These are once-bloomers, roses that make a lot of vegetative growth but don't bloom much in summer, and roses that are going to be ravaged by JBs.

Established roses in clay should be able to go at least six weeks without water in Atlanta. In California, some roses survive for months. On the other hand, new roses from pots (as opposed to bareroot) need light watering every other day or so. A plant is not in mortal danger until it hits the permanent wilting point, that is, wilting continues into the morning.

For maximum growth, roses need about 3/4" of water per week with highs in the 70s, up to 1-1/4" with highs in the mid to upper 90s. That's for reasonably humid central and eastern areas. In clay and heavy loam soils, water once a week. In fast-draining or shallow soil, give 1/2 inch two or three times a week depending on temperature.

An inch is 2 gallons on 4 sq. ft. or 4-5 gallons per square yard.

I use over head sprinklers, attached to the end of a hose. I have a big rain gauge that tells me when I have gotten 1 inch of water in an area, then drag the hose, sprinkler and gauge to another area. My roses get 1 inch per week year round, as it rains hardly ever. My newly planteds get hand watered about 3-4 times a week for about a month. This schedule is perfect for our very hot/arid/windy climate and loamy sand. Plus the water on the leaves helps keep them hydrated in the constant dry winds.
I just don't trust drip emitters, if you are not religious about checking them to see if they are actually running, plants can suffer/die.