"Ian B" wrote
The garden has half a dozen rose bushes in it, in various states. This one
is about the saddest looking. It had severe problems with black spot last
year, such that I now informally know it as Typhoid Mary.

http://img594.imageshack.us/i/iansrose.jpg/

So this year I read up about pruning for about thirty seconds on the
internet, then hacked savagely at all the bushes in the hope of creating
some improvement. They're all sprooting now, but the big problem with this
one is that it only has one, or if you're generous and squint your eyes a
bit, two canes coming out of the bud union (which also, as you can see, is
rather a long way above the ground for some reason). The rest is just a
big lump of gnarly old bark.

Is there anything I can do to improve its prospects and get some more, I
believe they're called "basal breaks", or is it the Gordon Brown of the
rose garden that is just clinging on until somebody does the kind thing
and puts it out of its misery? It produced one little red rose last year,
which was impressive considering all the leaves it lost (and it had not
many to start with) in my attempts to control the spread of the spot.

When my next door neighbour died I kept his old front garden tidy for his
sister and gave his old roses, that were more than half dead, a good dose of
feed, Growmore and Chicken manure pellets mainly. The difference was
amazing, they put on lots of new strong healthy growth and started to flower
beautifully.
The next year the new owners dug the lot up and concreted it all over! :-(

--
Regards
Bob Hobden
W.of London. UK