Ani, leaves harbor pest eggs and disease spores. By removing the leaves you open the canes up so they can be sprayed with the Neem or a dormant oil spray. It really has nothing to do with hardiness or root growth, just the general health of the plant. Roses in our local climate start to drop their oldest leaves as a natural growth cycle. By removing the leaves, we're doing what nature is going to do for us anyway. The only spray I use in my garden is one round of Volck's Dormant Oil spray after I prune in January. When using any oil-based spray, the temperature has to be under 60F, including reflected heat coming off block walls, so it can be tough getting even one round sprayed. The dormant oil spray helps to suffocate eggs and spores and should only be sprayed when the roses have no leaves. Because I often have roses from other people's yards come through mine for raffles or trades, I'm also trying to keep a disease called San Jose Scale out of my garden. Some great nurseries to purchase roses from in the metro-Phoenix area are Berridges, 4600 block E Camelback, Bakers, 40th Str & Osborn and Harpers, Hayden, south of Thomas. These aren't the only nurseries, of course, but they're well-known for quality roses and knowledge of rose culture.

If it was planted 5 to 10 years ago Honey Perfume would be too new. Look at Just Joey, it could be that.

Kali, An own root rose can have all cankered/black canes to the ground, but below ground life can, and often does persist. As the weather warms, shoots begin to emerge at ground level. Good, you think, the bush made it, so you think. A couple disheartening things often occur, though. The bush, depending on its age and how healthy it was when it went into the killer winter, is often so weakened by that winter, that the new growth it makes from below ground is very weak. The bush usually just limps along all season to die completely after the following winter. Alternately, in many cases I have had, "dead to the ground roses," regrow from the ground only to wither and shrivel up dead in a couple week's time that same growing season. A grafted rose is a wait and see situation if it appears all the canes above the graft are destroyed. There could still be live scion tissue inside that bud union that will spring forth fresh shoots shortly. You just have to wait and see. If fresh shoots come from below the bud union, emerging from the rootstock, then the new growth is the rootstock's, not the scion's. That bush gets dug out and pitched. If the rose sends out new shoots from the bud union, it should do so by the 4th. of July. I know it's a long wait, but I think it's worth the wait, especially for a beloved, mature bush. Sometimes a rough winter will kill all the canes, but new shoots will come from the bud union. This is good. However, the shock of the severe winter may also send a message to the rootstock to send out rootstock shoots too! You have to watch for suspicious looking growth that comes from below ground on a grafted rose whose canes all die back, but sends out good new shoots from the graft, and shoots from below the graft, from the rootstock. Any rootstock shoots need to be pushed down, not cut out, yes pushed down! If you cut them out, you often leave a piece of stump which will regrow quickly. Dig down with a trowel until you see where the shoot emerges from the rootstock. To detach the shoot, push the shoot down hard exactly where it attaches to the rootstock. It will break away clean, leaving no stump, often tearing a piece of rootstock along with it, that's good. Do not pull the shoot. It will snap and leave a stump which will regrow a new shoot. Hope I hit the target with these explanations. Moses

If you cut into it, you may find small white worm-like creatures. From the size of that, you may have a bunch of them. They are called mossy rose galls and are not that common on HTs and are more common in states to the north of you and me. Here's a link with lots of pictures https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=995&bih=645&ei=kp2IW426MJGUtQWhv7LICQ&q=mossy+rose+galls&oq=rose+galls&gs_l=img.1.1.0j0i5i30j0i8i30.4343.6172..10537...0.0..0.92.803.10......0....1..gws-wiz-img.FKnu_xUZWaE These things have been known a long time, although not well understood. There are some really strange uses of them that have no scientific support at all. I'd suggest removal and destruction as they can spread in a garden and I lost a R. eglanteria because I wanted to see how the rose lived with them (the answer was not well at all).