Charleen,
I agree with Gordon about going with new cuttings, but to answer Debbie's perennial question. Every once in a while, when everything but the root system has died back, a shoot may form on one of the larger roots. However, I haven't seen that too often. Most of the time the shoots that emerge from the ground come from the buried portion of the trunk. So you can't treat it like a perennial because in all likelihood all stalks belong to the same plant.
As for what has happened to Debbie's Brug ... How cold did it get last winter where Debbie lives? It's hard to say what happened to her Brug unless she digs the whole root ball out. There are a number of possibilities. That brutal winter could have frozen the majority of the root system if the ground froze. That one side of the plant died out indicates that there was root damage and that some of the buried trunk died. It may have taken a while for the whole plant to react to the damage. If rot has set in or if pests that feed on dead matter have invaded the plant, it is best to get rid of it and perhaps use a soil drench or solarize the soil in the area next summer to sterilize it before planting anything else in the same location.
Another possibility for what happened to the Brug could have to do with the way the plant was originally planted. If the native soil has a high clay content, if the sides of the planting hole were smooth and if she amended the soil, the roots may never have left the original planting hole. Instead they may have grown around and around in the same hole until the roots started to girdle one another. That coupled with last year's root and trunk kill would also account for the Brug's decline.
All in all, the easiest thing to do is to start with newly matured cuttings. The cuttings don't have to be small. She might like to try creating small standards. Here's JT link on how to do it.
http://garden.org/articles/vie...
I hope this answers most of Debbie's questions.
:smily:
and I would actualy cut allmost all the stalks off for new starts, and trim the roots, that way you may still save the main plant,and have lots of extras to keep, or trade.
There is no telling how I originally planted it. I was very new to gardening at the time and didn't check the rootball. My soil is sandy loam not clay. As for our weather, we can get occasional lows in the upper teens. Frequent freezes, but little snow (although we had 6 in. on one of the 3 times it snowed last winter. So the plants do die down and come back from the roots. Last winter started out brutal. In early November, we had 3 nights of below freezing temps (mid 20's) before we even had frost. The plants were not prepared for that and I'm sure they suffered. Well, it sounds like I should just take cuttings and discard the rootball. Who's going to dig that up? 
