I've been waiting for someone with nectarine experience to answer because I'm interested too, but I'll hazard a thought. Although many, if not most, people grow stone fruits in a vase it is also entirely possible to do a central leader. The closer tree looks like it is headed that way now, but either of them could be done either way. If you want a vase I'd head back the leader to about waist high and select your scaffold branches, removing all the others. As late in the season as it is I would probably leave it until winter but I think it'd be OK to do it now. Best check with somebody who knows, though, as I stand ready to be corrected! :-)M

To me it depends on the rose. Most grafted roses purchased locally in fall were bareroots left over from the previous January. If they weren't pruned at the nursery, they could probably use a trim now. Since each cane that grows out is a little smaller than the cane it grew out of, the weak, spindley growth will either produce blooms that bend/break the stem or they'll be too small to produce bloom. While some roses are notorious for nodding blooms, it isn't a trait often appreciated in a HT or Gr, lol. Do remove the oldest leaves as you'll notice many of them are yellowing anyway. If you don't want to prune off the newest growth, don't. You'll deadhead it off after the bloom anyway. The spot where the leaf meets the cane will harbor powdery mildew spores, over-wintering pest eggs and spider mites. Getting air and sunlight to those areas, and maybe a dormant oil spray or fungicide/pesticide, can cut down on your spring garden problems. While I don't spray during active growing season, I do use a dormant oil spray in winter. While Consulting Rosarians won't always agree with each other on certain aspects of rose growing, they are correct in saying that January is major pruning month. Exhibitors may wait until February to prune their show roses and others pruned between Christmas and New Years but when talking to novice rosarians, they'll tell you 'January'. All that said, I've got a CL Iceberg I haven't so much as dead-headed in 2-3 years because I'm still waiting to see if it's EVER going to climb. Right now it's just a short fat bush full of blooms. Both the Rose Society of Green Valley and the Tucson Rose Society are awesome places to learn rose culture. I'd strongly encourage you to attend the free public pruning demonstrations they hold at their meetings, local nurseries and public rose gardens.

They are beautiful pics, Cameron. Congratulations for the Monarchs finding you, and for getting your Monarch Waystation certified. Here's a link for finding your Monarch migration time. Find your latitude, and key it in. You may have a few stragglers, or late emergers after the peak migration. Hopefully, they will move on before cold weather. Otherwise,keep an eye your native mw patch in the spring. When your milkweed 1st starts to come up after breaking ground is generally when I start seeing the first Monarchs, and the 1st eggs, and the season starts over again. Journey North has a wonderful fall migration website with maps, and places to post your peak migration. It's pretty cool. http://www.learner.org/jnorth/maps/monarch_f07_Peak.html Hope that helps. Here is a link that might be useful: Monarch migration peak

Dennis has a good point but I prune even my cuttings. If I have an end tip cutting I cut it right above a bud so I can have a multi-branched tree from the start. Theoretically I may be forcing the plant to put energy into branching vs producing more roots, but I am no expert and that's what I do.