All mine are own root or end up that way. If they can't survive as an own root, they go, but If it's a first year rose I'll try it again to see if perhaps the roots had not matured enough. In many cases the second plant survives.

Even in my area, I've had some cold loss. My first 2 Don Juans went that way. But I love the rose, so now I have an own root (the other two were body bags). Pat Austin also seems iffy in my yard. My 3rd one doesn't look too good after this winter. I supposed it depends on how much I like the rose and really want it in my yard. I think 3 is the magic number. If it fails even after switching to own root and a better quality plant, then it wasn't meant to be.

Normally I don't replant even once unless the rose has irreplaceable virtues.

I think own root might work well for you, too. Any time you have a concern about a sudden freeze damaging your roses, at least with own root, the rose will come back. I got tired of ending up with the bottom half of the graft (small red roses on long canes) so I started buying own root roses. Now, if one does get killed back, I'll end up with the rose I thought I was buying :)

There are various methods for protecting roses in colder climates. One is to cut back the rose and put a bag over it filled with leaves or other mediums that will act as an insulator. However, this is not an option for a large untrimed rose. The bag needs to be tied down in a fashion that covers the root zone and so the bag doesn't get blown away.

In another life when we lived in Northern Ohio, I would actually uproot the rose on one side, lay it over and actually bury the rose.

Now, I happen to have 40 roses, two of which were here when we bought our home 40 years ago. I have planted the other 38 over the years and they were not cheap. That said, with a little effort I don't have to replace a hundred dollars woth of roses every year.

Karl, thanks for the good advice from the great frozen north. The roses I was gearing my question towards were indeed first year roses. A good point about the roots. I think I'll try again.

Buford: Yes, 3rd year is the magic number for roses I really like but seem to suffer severe winter injury every year during our normal zone 7A winters. Their performance keeps getting weaker and weaker and although I really miss some of them, in the end after the 3rd year they are gone.

Michaelg: I'm with you. I don't have room for roses that didn't perform all that well during our regular season. But one of the roses that I think was severly injured (or dead) is Easy Does It. I was really impressed with its first year performance, so I believe I'll try it one more time.

Lavender Lass: Knock on wood, but in the 25 years I've been growing roses I've never had Dr. Huey emerge on my grafted roses. It actually seems to deal with my heavy clay soil better then own root roses, but your point is worth noting for those who have had problems.

Maryl,
How deep do you plant the bud union? If above the ground, a severe winter or string of them can cause it to slowly deteriorate and eventually the plant will die as the damaged bud union won't allow nutrients and moisture to pass up to the grafted plant.
Another thing may be having all or mostly modern hybrid teas, floribundas, grandifloras, or other roses hybridized with tender rose varieties that don't go dormant. Normal winters in your zone 7 may allow them to grow well for a few years, then a couple of realy cold winters may do them in.
That's one reason I grow mostly hardy shrubs suited for my area that go dormant naturally.
Those hybrid teas I have are all own root. While they die back to the ground they come back from the roots. When first received they're grafted, but by planting the bud union deep I eventually end up with own root. They grow slowly and pout for a year or two but eventually snap out of it and grow normally, except for the winter dieback. With the parentage they have, I doubt they'll ever grow out of that.
In spring, patience is required as some show very little signs of life until later. I just cut the dead off as far as necessary, back to the ground sometimes, and patiently wait until later to determine of they've gone to the big rose garden in the sky. Usually, they'll send up some new canes from the roots.
While they seldom get as large as they would in a warmer growing zone or if properly winter protected, they get to a size I'm content with and produce enough blooms to keep me happy.

Maryl, I know what you are talking about. I haven't decided completely if the problem is the winter, or the freeze in the spring after they have come out of dormancy.

I have tried repeatedly to grow Mrs. B.R. Cant, but she is noted for having problems with the cold, and she really suffers. Not too many of mine have died, but who wants to wait until July for them to spring back.

I mainly grow teas, chinas, Buck, Pioneer, and the group of SDLM plus Maggie of the bourbons.

Also even though I have been growing for about 25 - 30 years also, I have just come to realize the importance of cutting older larger canes on roses that are more than 3 or 4 years old so that they will actively start to bloom. In other words, some of my problems may not be so much the freeze, but my "spring care practices."

Sammy

Karl: that was explained so well. The graft problem in particular could explain some of the weakening of roses over time. I'll remember that when I plant this springs round of new ones. Usually our winters are not a problem for most modern roses. Generally speaking it's the erratic fall and spring freezing and warming that does most of the damage to our roses. For instance, seldom do our roses of any kind have the luxury of going naturally dormant in the fall. It will be 80 one day and 20 the next. But these last two years it was the record breaking winter lows of zero and below that's been the "surprise" element for all of us. You've given me so much to think about in an area I haven't had too much experience with - severe cold damage. I thank you as always for sharing your experience.

Sammy, I sure hope your teas are not all killed being even less winter hardy then the moderns (or so I've heard). I'm beginning to see a pattern with my "types" of roses that are damaged more then others. The roses I've had the hardest time keeping were the Floribundas. I think it's because they have been bred to bloom constantly and when our usual wacko freeze/thaw cycle begins in Fall it catches them the hardest. It's a theory anyway. I've grown some Buck roses and while they were bred to withstand winter lows, they aren't any more immune to our up/down weather patterns then anything else. Or at least mine weren't. They died. Fingers crossed on how bad the damage will be to us this year.

Maryl,
It doesn't matter how hardy the top growth is on a grafted rose. The bud union is the weak point and most subject to damage during your record breaking lows of zero or below. 80 degree days followed by 20s can cause moisture in the bud union to freeze and expand causing the two slightly disimilar tissues to separate, thus the reason to bury the bud union. I also allow oak leaves to collect at the bases of my roses to further protect them. Other than that, there is no other winter protection.
As you can see a slight separation of the bud union in each of a couple of really cold winters can cause slow deterioration and eventually death.

Maryl, most of my 300 roses are moderns; the majority being HTs and floribundas. I'd guess about 70% or so of those are grafted. Being in Zone 5A, I heeded Karl's sage advice when starting out with roses several years ago and planted grafted roses 6" deep to protect the graft. I read somewhere that 6"deep down the soil temperature averages about 28F. And like Karl, my only winter protection is a good oak mulch that I maintain year-round and oak leaves that blow in from the surrounding trees...that's it! I will throw dried miscanthus grass on more tender roses and it has proven to give them a boost...we got to -10F several nights and a couple of my Perentiantias look really green under the grass.

I seldom lose a rose to winterkill....the only rose that I cannot get to grow for me is 'Gee Whiz'...a coveted Buck that I've tried twice own-root. I ended up ordering 'Distant Drums' as a grafted plant from Pickering because it would not make it through the winter as own-root, and it solved the hardiness issue for me.
-terry