Now is not a good time to move a rose on Cape Cod. It is in the midst of its growing season and will be putting its energy into top growth not establishing roots. Are you certain that the problem is not enough sun? Right now roses on the Cape have been devastated by the winter moth and the other caterpillar that is devouring the new growth. I would guess that the rose is being badly damaged by these pests. Check the rose carefully and remove and destroy any caterpillars on the rose. Check every day for new ones and remove them. Give the rose lots of water; we have not had any rain in over a week and I noticed that all my roses are needing a good drink as I have been away for a week. Go to Country Garden or what ever garden center is close to you and buy fish emulsion with seaweed. Follow the directions on the label for feeding and give the rose a feeding every other week. Make sure you give it plenty of water. I have all my roses in pots in the shade because they don't dry out as fast and they are doing fine. I would wait to transplant the rose until the fall after it goes dormant or next April before it breaks dormancy. Make sure you dig a BIG hole and add an entire bag of composted cow manure or whatever you can get at the garden center to the hole along with a couple of cups of Rose Tone. Mix it well with the sandy soil in the hole and plant the rose. Good luck, Sandy in Barnstable Here is a link that might be useful: Cape Cod Heritage Roses

Sympathies on the losses, Beth. I know you love your oddball roses and you're one of the people in the US that has some of these unobtainable roses. It's frustrating to lose track of such things, but as you mentioned you've had a lot else on your mind. I'm glad you are at peace about your mom, but it still has taken a toll in emotions and time along the way. It's good that many of the roses will be replaceable, and I'm sure Burling would reserve some of them for you if needed. Take a deep breath and look at the roses that have SURVIVED and are blooming. For me that's the antidote to the rose carnage we have in cold zones after every winter. I grieve the ones I've lost till I pull the tags and wipe them from my lists, then they aren't staring me in the face to remind me of what isn't there anymore. Sometimes then I can look back at the losses after a year or two and appreciate something I've put in place instead as much or more. I wish I could share cuttings with you to help out, but getting plants in and out of California isn't something one can do on a casual basis I fear. Hang in there and take lots of fabulous pictures of the roses you still have! We'll be watching for them. Cynthia

I'd be nervous about roughing up the cane and wrapping, also. Wrapping with sphagnum *here* in the summer would be risky due to the heat and likelihood of it drying out in less than a day even wrapped with plastic. That plastic could end up cooking the cane also. Or in the winter it would freeze. In your climate it might work, but I'd be more comfortable doing it how you are. I would also take a cutting (or two or more if I could). The way I take cuttings is from a just-bloomed stem, and 2-3 nodes, so it looks like you have enough stem for that in the last photo. There are many, many ways that people do cuttings and you can see that in the Rose Propagation and Exchange forum. I talk about the way I do my cuttings in this thread: https://www.houzz.com/discussions/success-with-florist-roses-dsvw-vd~3549922 It's just what works for me but everyone seems to have their own way that they like. Just so you can see how small the cuttings are, I just took these photos just now, with what's cooking. Here's an Abe cutting (see the roots coming out at the bottom), this cutting has only one leaf and the dried peduncle above it. And Bolero, this pot has two cuttings: In your zone it wouldn't be a bad time of year for cuttings. My mother in the East Bay just lops a branch off and sticks it in the ground at pruning time, and she gets nearly 100% success. She doesn't use rooting hormone or any special treatment.

In your zone winter cane die back is normal for most roses but I doubt your roses are completely dead, A lot of old garden roses have brown or gray and woody looking canes but that doesn't mean the cane is dead. Unfortunately your November pruning was the exact wrong time of year to prune Seven Sisters. She is a once blooming rose and only blooms on old canes. At least one year old wood. So by pruning her in the fall you probably took off a lot of her one year old canes and that will greatly reduce your bloom for this year. Once blooming roses should only be pruned immediately after they finish their bloom in the spring or early summer. The color of the outside of the canes is not an accurate way of telling if a cane is alive or not. You need to look at the inside of the cane. Find an end and snip off a small piece and look at the center of the cane. If it is brown/tan and dried up it is dead. Go down another few inches and clip again and look. Do this gradually down the cane until you find a center that looks white/greenish and moist. from there on down the cane should be alive. Do this with each cane. After a bit you'll get a better feel for what might be dead and what is still alive. Your red rose sounds like a modern rose and die back is even more common. Use the same method of pruning to find what is good, live cane and what is not. On these types of roses it is a good idea to make your last cut at a 45 degree angle about a quarter inch above an outward facing growth node. Take off all the dead wood first and see what you have left before you decide to do more pruning. In your cold zone I caution you to wait a bit longer before doing any pruning. It is still too early. I am in zone 6b and I am just going to start pruning mine this week. A rule of thumb is to wait until the forsythia bushes are blooming. That's usually when the roses begin to show new leaf growth as well and you can see where new leaves will be coming from to make your cuts easier to find.