In article aHlwYXRpYQ==.725e66e73de4057b5f562dce401bb7d4@104 9548277.cot
se.net, Shiva writes
Jane Lumley wrote:

.

I think they need more everything when they're struggling - more water,
more mulch, more rotted manure, more, and more frequent food and more
antifungal sprays in poor conditions.

Agreed!

[...]

and I find Osmocote nearly worthless .

You've tried it and you really feel it doesn't help your roses? I
recommended it because Cass likes it and she grows gorgeous roses.

I was interested that others had found it so effective - maybe the UK
product is not nursery grade? The stuff I had just came from the garden
centre.... The roses I used it on flowered only sporadically. The
following year I replanted the same kinds and gave them heaps of mulch,
dug in manure and Vitax. They did much better.

Or it could be that climate matters - there's a big gap between San Jose
and Oxford! We're wetter, which presumably would bleed the stuff
faster, but also much chillier. I imagine all this illustrates the
importance of location; we know what works in our own gardens by hands-
on experience, but only some fo that is repeatable hundreds of miles
away.

On fertilising pots - I've heard that using solid fertilisers can only
work in the short term because the waste products build up in the soil
and eventually make it toxic, so I tend to use foliar and liquid feeds
on my containers.
--
Jane Lumley