You are not alone!

Those plants are rooted cuttings grown inside a greenhouse, as opposed to plants you would buy at a nursery. They are not in proper soil, and tend to dry out as you have experienced.

If a potted rose has good drainage, you can water it frequently, but the kind you have will need decent potting soil and a larger pot. Outdoors on your patio with 6 hours or more of sunshine should be fine.

You may well be able to save your little plants, even though they have lost their leaves. I have done so before.

Below is a link to a discussion about the same subject on the Miniature Rose forum. It's from a few years ago, but has very good advice:

Here is a link that might be useful: How to save a potted gift rose

I think the best way to rid a small potted rose of insects is to hold the soil in with one hand and then invert the plant and rinse the leaves with a strong spray of water from a sink faucet. Both oil and soap can kill the leaves on a rose. I would take the plant to a sink, spray it again with a dilute soap solution (say about 1/2 TBS dish detergent in a quart of water) just to remove any residual oil from the stems, and then immediately rinse the plant thoroughly with water. Continue to give the plant sun and water and I'll bet it recovers.

I too was given a mini rose bush from my boyfriend a few years ago and it dried up and turned brown like it was burnt. I have alot of aloe Vera plant and I figured the plant heals burns on humans so I clipped off a spear and cut it in half and squeezed out the gel and planted Aloe Vera spear in rose bud dirt. In a few weeks the mini rose bush cane back to life and out grew it's planter pot,do I carefully transplanted it in a larger container,suprisingly the roots looked odd Like big onion bulbs like seaweed,not resembling roses or Aloe Vera roots,anyway the plant lasted for six to eight months longer than the dried up burnt dead stage that was the previous state of mini roses. Hopefully this true story will help you with having your rose bush come back to life. I'm curious why the root structure changed so drastically do any exoerts know why the roots. Came to look like huge bulbs like seaweed? Thank you katy

Katy, are you saying you planter AV in with your rose and also used the gel on fried canes? If so, perhaps by planting the AV with the rose you made sure to give them both plenty of water to root the AV.