dave weil observed after I blathered:
Cass wrote:
wrote:

Now that it has stopped raining every other day, it is so hot there's
no way I'm going to work in the gardens especially since we now have
skeeter-born illness here! (I'm a wimp, it's true.)

I'm still chewing over what went wrong that resulted in the death of
so many grafted roses, mostly the new ones I planted bare root.

What has been different this year is:

1. LOTS of rain.
2. No anti-fungal or insecticide sprays at all since mid-May.

I wouldn't think either factor could have been involved, since, as you
say, other roses subjected to the same conditions are thriving.

It sounds to me like a case of drowned roots. If the bare roots were
planted in March and the rains immediately started and didn't stop for
months, then the bare roots would have never gotten the chance to
breathe (literally) and grow properly.

Established root systems would grow far deeper and more extensive and
could probably thrive in such conditions. However, a one month old
plant doesn't have any roots deeper than about 2 feet, and at that
depth *all* of the soil would be sodden.

You make a good case for for drowning as the most likely cause. I
didn't find the exact numbers, but it looked like inches of rain each
month, April, May, June and July were way above normal.
http://www.weatherequipment.com/forecast.htm

But Shiva said the bed drains, so I was taking her word for it. And..
I'm still surprised that she didn't see signs of stress in the
established plants in the ground.

If, in general, the subsoil gets even wetter than the topsoil because
that's where all the water drains *to,* how do you explain that? And,
even large roses tend to have the vast majority of their root system in
the top 2 feet of soil.

None of that changes the likely cause. Oh, and I never put bareroots
right in the ground. I lost 7 or 8 one year due to dessication from
high winds in March. Now I baby them until they are big honkin 5 gallon
plants. I can control water and drainage until they're ready to take it
on their own. If a pot isn't draining, I knock the rose out and repot
in different topsoil in a larger pot.