All my roses are heavily mulched. In fact just about everything is heavily mulched around here. I use either bagged leaves that people put out by the curb in the fall or bales of straw. Still in the roses, the only times you can actually see the mulch is winter or early in the spring like this. The roses are all heavily prunned down in the spring and you can see the area around them. Once they start to bud up they are too full already to see any ground between them, mulch or no mulch.
If its dry, meaning not much rain, I do have to water my roses. Last year, we had so much rain, I never had to water anything. Still the fact that it is all mulched helps alot with not needing so much water.
