Just came back in from surveying the damage from heavy rains and not
spraying either fungicide or insecticide since the middle of May, and
it is terrible. I was able to fertilize with some generic three-month
granular at the end of May.

Leaving aside the vole casualties for now, here is what died or is on
its way out:

This season's bare roots, all grafted:

Arizona
Melody Parfume
Outta the Blue
Joseph's Coat
Barbra Streisand
Blue Nile

Other seasons's grafted:

Antigua
Angel Face
Mr. Lincoln
Tiffany

There is advanced borer damage on all the grafted roses, but
especially the dead one (!) that tells me I need to address this
problem. I had thought all I had was the relatively harmless kind, but
apparently not. On the dead grafted roses AND the living ones there
has been terrible canker and cane dieback. The bare roots had been
doing well--maybe half the canes very vigorous. Then they dwindled as
the rain went on.

Question:

What do you all consider good for a bareroot, in terms of how many of
the canes actually live and sprout?

Here is the big surprise, and I will not even pretend to understand
it:

Here in my zone 7B, Raleigh, NC garden, after this two-month deluge,
where I have generally sprayed for both insects and fungus over the
years, and where the soil is rich and black, where I keep the plants
well mulched, and where the temps range from 40F to 100F April to
October, ALL of my own root roses are doing well. ALL of them, from
the ones I ordered from Michael's in 2000 to the ones from Muncy's and
Roses Unlimited that I just put in last fall. Many of these are
Austins. Of all of them, the Austins look the best. Is this because
they are "English" roses and so bred to do the backstroke for a couple
of months and still survive? Or what? All the ownroots are still
green--even the hybrid teas--but all the Austins still have LEAVES.

Just an observation, no theories or claims etc. But I am thinking I'm
not going to buy anything but ownroots next year. What do you all
think about this? Can anyone offer any theories as to why this is?