After learning where you live, I understand that heat was not a factor, but roses just don't transplant easily unless from small or medium pots. When you dig them, the fine roots are lost or disconnected from the soil, and the coarse roots are not able to supply enough water. So they will wilt and maybe defoliate, even in mild BC weather, because lots of water is being lost through the leaves. The particular problem with transplanting this time of year is that any new leaves that grow out will not have time to replace the energy spent in growing them out. If you waited till late October, your alba (or other deciduous rose) would have withdrawn and stored nutrients from the leaves and there would be no loss of water from the foliage. Dormant roses can be transplanted without much pruning. As to excess watering, soil being saturated for two weeks will kill the feeder roots and cause yellowing and defoliation. Soak the transplant in with a very heavy watering, let drain, and then water normally. So overwatering may have caused defoliation, but it can happen without that.

i doubt this means anything in z9 .. lol ... but here in z5 ... frost and cold weather trigger color change ... as well as other variables not pertinent to the discussion ... anyway .. back to frost .... on my 5 acres.. i can have some hosta stay alive weeks longer than others ... simply on where the cold hits in the yard ... in other words.. temperature variations vary wildly inside one yard.. let alone two nurseries.. let alone adding your garden to the mix ... exterior bronzing is normal for crypto's .. interior green is perfect ... just pray the bronze doesnt turn to khaki or tan .. which is dead tissue ... i question how you can be so sure of the proper name.. on a one gallon sized plant.. when the color.. according to your own research, indicates that BD isnt supposed to do that .... unwinding and transplanting the thing is a horrible shock.. all and all ... so its entirely possible that that has something to do with the color change ... good luck ken

I would scrutinize my watering practices and see how the rose responds, Natasha. Watering twice a week is kind of insane for young roses trying to survive our dryness/heat during the summer, but I am sure you are aware that you must continue your diligence and figure it out. Adjusting your practices accordingly should reveal if the problem is watering, over-fertilizitation, or something like that. If the problem persists, I would remove the roses one by one, carefully potting them up in between waterings. Their new pot should prepared so once the rose is carefully removed, it can be placed directly in to the pot, covered with potting soil, a little compost, and watered without delay. It then should live in shade or open shade until it rebounds. Once showing health, it can be taken out into morning sun only for about 3-4 hours or so. Btw, you are correct, we are drier, with 4-4.5" of rain annually :(... just not quite as hot, nor for as long. You all get an extra month of that heat. We are beginning our extreme heat descent right now.

You already got terrific responses to your questions, but to summarize: 1. Cold zones bury the graft because we need winter survival. Warm zones don't bury it (that's where the advice comes from) because they don't worry about survival and don't want the rootstock to grow suckers if buried. In cold zones, if we don't bury the graft all we may have left is the rootstock surviving, so we don't really have a choice if we're growing fussy HTs and floribundas. 2. You find the best cool tips about things like alfalfa (spreading alfalfa hay around your bushes in spring really can boost cane growth) and other rose ideas here on GardenWeb. Seriously, that's a good reason to keep checking in here and we try to be helpful when we get questions. Paul Zimmerman also has some good tips on his website, though he's in zone 7 and occasionally some of his tips don't apply to colder zones (like pruning recommendations). 3. We only prune to the ground if we have to. If we have 8-12" of surviving healthy cane we throw a rose party nearby. The recommendations to prune a rose back to encourage new growth are also for warmer zones where they don't have significant cane death and need to prune out old growth to rejuvenate it. That is not an issue for 80-90% of my roses, but the few that always have surviving cane will get maybe a third of their canes pruned down to 2' or so every year or two to keep the canes active. As I say, this is almost never needed on HTs but instead shrubs. I wouldn't do that for a climber since you want the main canes to stay long, but you can prune back the laterals that branch off the main cane. A bottom line point to keep in mind as you filter rose advice is to take it from places that are similar to your climate. Warm zone advice doesn't translate well to cold zones, and dry zone advice may not translate well to damp climates. Cynthia