Most roses die to the ground in our zone. If you haven't seen any new growth on those three roses, then they could be dead. I have one that just started to grow this week, but I wouldn't expect too much if you haven't seen anything yet. The ones that are alive, you can cut off any dead canes from last year. Cut the canes down to where the inside of the cane is white instead of brown. That is usually down to where the green cane starts.

Now, if you want to plant new roses there, bury the new roses more deeply. You want the graft (the big knob where the canes come out) to be about 4-6 inches below the surface of the soil. That way it is protected during the winter. Don't prune the roses in fall, wait until spring to prune out the dead canes. If you do this you should have better luck next year.

You can gently dig down to the bud union and look for new growth but be very careful not to destroy the growth you are looking for. One of the problems of deep planting is the deep soil doesn't warm up as fast so they get through the winter but take forever to get started in the spring. When they tell you to plant deep they should also tell you to raise your beds at least 8 inches. The rose has to get established the first year which means it should be doing well at the end of the season. It should be at its' peak and ready for the onset of winter. Never plant in the fall or even in the summer. One of the reasons I only would buy bare roots is that you can always get them well established by the summer and there will be no problems in the winter. Potted roses are a tossup. They are forced and chopped and often they sit there in the spring and don't get established and then they suffer in the summer and end up not making it through the winter.

A lot of my roses have died over the winter, including supposedly hardy Buck roses. This is getting expensive. Go to Home Depot and pick up Reine des Violettes and Comte de Chambord. They are on sale for $9.99. Plant the bud union 3 inches deep. Also see if a local nursery has Rose de Rescht. A hardy Austin is Sharifa Asma. Evelyn and Tradescant are also good. Quietness is an excellent Buck rose. Martine Guillot is a hardy Generosa.

Modern roses like you get in most garden centers here in zone 5 bloom on new wood so the new growth is what you want for blooms.
That is, unless the rose died and the root stock is sending up growth in which case it'll bloom next year and only onceand not be the rose you originally had.
Transplanting should be done in early spring. Don't move them this late. Replace the three with potted roses purchased from a reputible garden center and take care when planting so as not to desturb the root ball. If soil fall away from the roots, tiny feeder roots will come off also leaving your new roses with no means to take up moisture.
Fertilizer is not a cure all. Fertilizer will not bring back a dead plant. Take care what kind you get. Use slow release types such as the six month release Osmocoat or better yet an organic type that'll help your soil as it feeds the roses. Horse manure is great also.
If there is a rose society in your area, join so you can get lots of tips from experienced growers. We like to share our knowledge. Let me know what city you live in so I can see if there's one near you.

predfern--

It would be useful information if you'd list the Buck roses that have frozen out in your garden.

"It would be useful information if you'd list the Buck roses that have frozen out in your garden."

The only Buck rose I have found reliably hardy in zone 4 is 'Applejack'. In zone 6 'Country Dancer', 'Golden Unicorn', 'Hawkeye Belle' and 'Carefree Beauty' have been reliable and hardy for me.

Most Buck roses seem relatively hardy in zone 6 but once you get to zone 5 you will find that personal experience for your particular micro climate and gardening techniques will be your guide. You will have to try them to see what works in your garden.

Any potted roses bought now will likely have been subjected to a lot of abuse so I would not buy potted roses in June. I don't care how reputable you believe the nursery/garden center to be. One tip...look to see what the potted roses you are about to buy are potted in. If you can't tell what it is ask and if they don't know take that as a warning. I've seen roses potted in every kind of crap imaginable. Often it is sand mixed with peat or shredded wood. Another good reason never to buy potted roses. If you plant them without disturbing the roots you are just insuring that your roses will always be in that stuff. They are guaranteed to look nice when you buy them and then to go straight downhill.

I agree with Palustris that the only Buck you can mindlessly recommend is Applejack. The rest may or may not have issues, depending on your microclimate and gardening style.

One of the things that Lily said Griffith Buck told her was that he was not aiming for cane hardy roses. That was just too hard. He was looking for bounceback roses. And bounceback is very dependent on microclimates, heat, and cultural techniques. In my climate, it's up there with the Loch Ness Monster and the Abominable Snowman on the list of popular myths. So Bucks are not something I am a big fan of. Applejack is a keeper. Earth Song is good here, but not something I recommend for further north, and that is the total of my recommended Bucks.

After donating a couple/few dozen roses to a local park project in the early planning phases a few years ago, I can say that Mr. Darwin has good things to say about at least a few varieties.

Of the roses I donated, half of them were various Buck roses. Over the past few years, the organizers pursued fundraising efforts, purchased a second adjoining lot, handled planning & permits, etc. In the meantime, the proposed park was essentially a big, vacant lot gone weedy wild. My roses and some other types of plants donated by others made it at least a little pretty and gave folks passing some hope. This spring, it's finally really rolling.

And the roses went for three or four years without ANY care. I mean no winter protection, no regular watering, no spraying, becoming weed-choked, then being accidentally (and, in some instances, fatally) weeded out by overeager park volunteers on clean-up days, and relocating from point A to B to point C on the lots as necessary. Finally, last fall -- I kid you not -- the final survivors had giant pallets of bricks parked on top of them.

Surprisingly, Voluptuous!, a hybrid tea, held in there quite a while. Other contenders who held out a while Constellation (a miniature rose), Peace, Distant Drums, Polonaise and a few others.

However, at the end of the day, there are now only four roses left. The first two are Carefree Beauty and/or Earthsong. (The tags are gone, and I find it hard to distinguish them from memory). The third rose, Sharifa Asma, also looks really good. The fourth rose is a miniature -- Incognito, I think, but I need to wait for it to bloom to be sure.

The new brick walls and paving, by the way, look great!

Earthsong is having trouble bouncing back this year.
Many of the Bucks that died in my garden were from Sam Kedem and rabbits also could have inflicted damage. Here is a partial list of Buck roses that died in my garden.

Prairie Harvest
Chorale
Music Maker
Rural Rhythm (Kedem sent another and it died over winter)
Country Song
Prairie Sunrise
Prairie Star (Roses Unlimited, this winter)
Queen Bee

Hardy Bucks
Wanderin' Wind (piddly blooms, horsey bush)
Aunt Honey (boring)
Les Sjulin (blows quickly)
Prairie Breeze (wow! big, full blooms)
Quietness (nice)

Marginal Bucks
Earthsong (this winter)
Silver Shadows
Distant Drums

I have
Serendipity
Les Sjulin
Apple Jack
April Moon
Aunt Honey
Autumn Dusk
Barn Dance
Carefree Beauty
Country Dancer
Country Music
Distant Drums
Earth Song
Folk Singer
Ellen's Joy
Malaguena
Honeysweet
Prairie Breeze
Prairie Harvest
Prairie Squire
Prairie Sunrise
Prairie Sunset
Prairie Valor
Silver Shadows
Spanish Rhapsody
Square Dancer
Summer Wind
Winter Sunset
Although they all die back quite a bit, They come back strong. All are blooming now in my garden.
Yes, they blow quickly but many have hybrid tea type blooms and even though they don't last long, they're hardier than most hybrid teas. And they repeat well. Les Sjulin and Serendipity are always in bloom

Here the 5-10 degrees worth of extra cane-hardiness (vs. hybrid teas and floribundas) is quite useful in that you start the season with a shrub rather than a collection of stumps. It adds almost a whole additional flush to the blooming season.

In a public garden here, Prairie Valor and Chorale died out after being ravaged by blackspot. Winter Sunset, Carefree Beauty, and Country Dancer have been three of the best roses there under very hard conditions (no spray or irrigation, severe drought for three years). Prairie Harvest has been great there, but looks puny this year for some reason.

Many Buck plants are virused, which might play a role in hardiness or lack of.

The ten or so varieties I've tried in my own garden have been cane hardy at 0-5 F. Prairie Sunrise usually has a bit of winter damage-- it being a slow grower, I wouldn't expect much from it farther north.

predfern, whereabouts in Chicago land are you? I'm in Evanston. Your rose collection sounds great.

For the OP, I have to push Quietness. It was planted bareroot/own root from Roses Unlimited Spring 2008 and came through the winter with only a bit of tip dieback, which I wasnt' expecting. It's hard not to love a plant like that whose foliage was so clean during last year's wet summer.

Jacques Cartier/M. Bocella and Comte d. Chambord are also spectacular for slightly larger shrubs. And we should add the rugosas to the OP's list.

Gee michaelg, none of my Buck roses show any signs of being virused. All were own root purchased from Great Lakes Roses.

Karl, predfern said most of his were from Sam Kedem. I've heard Sam propagated some virused Bucks as did RU. Both might be cleaner now. At one time I think Jung's and Wayside were major distributors of Bucks, and they both used low-end contract producers who spread virus to all their varieties. So it wasn't easy to get clean stock plants. My Bucks are all from RU and haven't shown symptoms, but Donny complained she got virused plants there some years ago. They have been making an effort to improve, though.

So if your Bucks do better than others in the same zone, maybe it's because you have fewer virused plants.

Thanks you all for all your responses. They have been VERY helpful. Thanks much. I dug up the dead roses and was going to plant new ones but thanks to your advice, I will wait until next year. I wish I knew the name of my roses but I did not save the information. I know they are hybrids. I will post a picture of them soon for those who would like to know. The other roses that survived basically did so on their own without much help unforunately. So they are good roses for this region. Next time I will give them a little more attention and prepare them better for the cold weather.

I also lost some of my Buck collection this past winter. I have tried Gee Whiz twice...I simply cannot get this one to overwinter at all. Spanish Rhapsody, Pipe Dreams, Allamand Ho, Honey Sweet, and Wild Ginger were also victims of the 2009 winter.

I also grow these Bucks:
Bucred
Country Music
Distant Drums
Earth Song
El Catala
Folksinger
Gentle Persuasion
Iobelle
Mavorneen
Mountain Music
Pearlie Mae
Piccolo Pete
Polonaise
Prairie Princess (climber)
Prairie Sunrise
Prairie Sunset
Sevilliana

-terry

I have one Buck rose, Prairie Harvest. I planted it as a band last year, straight into the ground. It survived the winter, although the canes died to the ground. I expected that. I am not enthralled by it at all; almost no scent, blows quickly, color very boring. I am thinking about replacing it, although I am really struggling with all my roses in that location. See, on the east side of the house I almost never see them because we nearly always approach from the west, and we enter the backyard on the east side, too. I feel like I miss a lot over there.

That's sad to hear Terryjean. Spanish Rhapsody and Honey Sweet were on my short list for next year. I know that the local rose garden has Honey Sweet that does well for them so I might try it anyway.

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Karl, I agree with you about Serendipity - it truly is always in bloom throughout the growing season. (My Les Sjulin rests a little more between blooms, but it gets some shade, which explains that). Like you, I got my Bucks from Great Lakes Roses and haven't had a virus problem. Most of my Buck roses in my zone 5 garden are grown in the lower garden, where cold and frost settles and winds howl all winter. Other 'tough Bucks'' for me are Prairie Sunrise, Quietness, Malegaena, Paloma Blanca, Golden Unicorn, Carefree Beauty, Folksinger, Joseph Lamb, & Prairie Song. Some of them have to be severely pruned in the spring but they always come back nicely. I have had some Bucks struggle, but I'm never sure if it's the actual rose, or the rooted cutting of that rose that is weak, or perhaps where it was planted. Ownroots do take longer to get established, and are more vulnerable to problems when young.