@Fire, would it be worth trying Marlorena's tip of notching a bare stem just above an incipient bud? I'm going to try it on my rather leggy Eglantyne rose soon. You need a very sharp knife. More info on the main Roses thread if you read back a bit and a very helpful video Nollie highlighted.
I hoped that cutting it back would spur
new 'basal canes' to grow. But no. The one cane coming out of the
ground has growth coming off it. I'm not sure if those count as 'basal',
as they are coming off the single cane. So - the experiment didn't
work, but I also didn't kill it.
I grow lots of roses and for various reasons, sometimes I've ended up with the main stem being thick and bare except for the top end.
As Dove suggests, cutting back to three or four buds will save the plant a lot of energy. Sometimes the stem or perhaps by now the trunk, may have become very thick and no buds can be identified. As long as the plant is still alive, then the energy will often force breaks and produce new shoots. Hope this helps.
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