How much water is actually going on the rose as compared to the amount running off. If you fill the bucket fast, letting the hose run on the bush as quickly will result in losing a lot of the water. Now if you fill the bucket at a trickle and spend the same amount of time applying it to the rose at the same trickle rate, you'll have applied the 5 gallons to the plant.
I set a 5 gallon bucket,with nail hole in the bottom side, next to a bush and fill the bucket. As the water trickles out of the nail hole it's all absorbed by the soil at the base of the bush. It beats standing there waiting.

Thanks, karl,but when you have a 100 roses that would be a lot of buckets.LOL

Would it not partially depend on the porosity of the soil? My soil is very sandy and if I watered only once a week, especially in the summer, my roses would shrivel up. In clay soil I would suppose the water would be retained for a much longer time.

Ingrid

I would ask myself...Do my roses look good? Do they seem to be growing well? If they are, then, perhaps you're doing something right.

Robert

I like Karl's bucket trick -- I never would have thought of that!

Lunchlady, for me, deep watering at least twice a week is best, and I live in a mild climate. If you live in Texas, with much hotter summers, I would think you would need to water more than I do.

Whatever suggestion is used for how much to water, if you dig down into the soil afterward you can easily see if it has penetrated to the level of the roots. As Ingrid said, the soil texture makes a difference.

If the water only soaks into the top couple of inches with each watering, that's where most of the fine feeder roots will grow. Then, if you have a hot spell, those surface roots can quickly dry out and be damaged, causing the plant to lose leaves or worse.

If you water slowly, giving enough time for it to soak down deep, more of the feeder roots will grow at a deeper level where they have some protection from temperature extremes.

Thanks, everyone for your advice.I have really good soil,I have composted all my beds.I'm going to start watering slower.I may see if I can find some two gal bucket,and follow Karl advice.My roses look really good right now,but the hottest part of the summer not here yet.I wish I knew how to post pictures.

Thanks,Ann

If you have heavy soil, you can dike around the plants to hold whatever amount of water you want to apply; then it doesn't matter how fast you put it on.

Ann, counting seconds for gallons is what I do; it's good practice. If 5 gallons per week is enough to keep them growing through the heat of summer for you, then you don't need to apply that much in spring and fall, especially spring when the plants are smaller after pruning. Water consumption by plants is roughly proportional to daytime temperature.

Another thing you can do, if you see the water running off(which is not helping the rose) is to water 3,4, or 5 at a time..water each one till you see it starting to run off, then water the next one, and keep going back and forth, back to the first one till they all get the amount of water you want them to have. I remember an old rose friend with hundreds of roses, because of her age, and the time it took to hand water, went to an automated system. She said that she missed hand watering..she felt like she didn't know her roses anymore...there is something to be said for standing in front of each rose and really taking the time to look at each rose, each leaf, each bloom...Donna

If you have that many roses, you should look into getting a drip irrigation system. It waters slowly to the roots of each rose and it's so very nice for not having to stand there with the hose for hours so you can actually do other gardening chores like weeding :)

An expert rose grower who owned a nursery told me an easy rule of thumb to know how to water a rose in ground,
90 degreese and above, once a day
80-90 degreese once every other day
70-80- once every 3 days
I have sandy soil, so I am taking his advise.
It is working, I do hand water most of the time, drip sometimes when I have other things to do, but I don't have that many rose bushes either.
Hope this helps someone.

It's peaceful for me to go out and hand water.It's my stress release.My neighbors probaly think I'm crazy,I talk to my plants.I don't have weeds in my beds,and if I do,I pull it out while watering.