I am sulky as well, watching the garden prepare for sleep. Fall cleanup in the garden is ever bit as appealing to me as fall cleanup in the house, and my Beloved Husband knows I'd rather have a root canal than clean house.
But I'm going to do it, just as I do housework, because my work now will benefit the roses in the long run. I'm fortunate in that my winters up here in the Pacific Northwest are relatively mild. They are also wet for days or weeks on end, so I don't mulch my roses here with anything but a thin layer of grass clippings as anything much thicker just provides a nice breeding ground for black spot.
If your winters are cold, and your roses are budded, now would be a good time to put your mulch in place. Simply ring the rose outside the dripline with your choice of mulch material, and it will be ready to pull up closer when the time comes, rather like a blanket at the end of the bed.
Unless you live in the Deep South, you should let those last rose hips remain on your roses. I fertilize my own roses lightly in the fall, and not again until spring. Unless your soil is 60 degrees or higher, your roses won't be doing much in the way of utilizing it anyway, so use your own judgment on this one.
Remove and throw away every last leaf that has even a hint of blackspot. Do not compost them. Spray for blackspot or powdery mildew just as you have been doing all summer. These diseases, at least up here, don't seem to stop for winter.
My favorite recipe is and still remains One Tablespoon of baking soda, One tablespoon of horticultural oil per gallon of water. It's non-toxic and it works for me. Spray every 10 days or so, both under and on top of the leaves.
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