I don't know where you're located, but where I live it's still too early to pass judgement on a rose that hasn't leafed out yet. Plenty of my roses that are quite alive are still tentative about leafing out. If I was in a much warmer zone the situation would be different.

Concerning the question about a dead rose:

if the rose died from years of failure to thrive, attributable to unrelenting rabbit attack, replacement with a petunia is unwise.

Petunia: (n.) slug fodder

Are there buds swelling on it? If you scrape a twig is it green or brown underneath? How about if you snap a twig in half?

About replacing it...whatever moves your heart at that moment! I usually go with another rose. ^_~

summercloud: most of my roses are at the leafing out stage but I have four that range from 1/2 inch green stem with a black tip, to brown/woody, to ‘I’m sure I planted here, WTF‘.

I’m not sure how long to wait until I can be reasonably sure there isnt going to be new growth from the roots.

In my zone 5, I have some roses that die to the ground and are very slow to wake up. I don't usually pull the tags from a rose until June and last year I pulled some only to have it finally regrow from the base.

If you have black tips, you can go ahead and prune those off even to the ground. Just don't cut off the knobby base if it's a grafted rose. Brown and woody can be mature cane and that's a good thing. It can be challenging to notice the budding out on woody canes, and in robust roses you occasionally prune out woody canes just to get it to put out newer canes now and then.

The timing of these things depends on where you are. Pictures are always helpful too.

Cynthia