Leave the plant alone. You have collected it at an awkward time. The shrivelling leaves are the first sign the plant has not got the root mass to support the foliage. ' You have collected the plant too late in the season for optimal recovery. Native beech should be collected BEFORE they begin to break buds, not just after. You are also up against the plant's conservative nature. Native beech (fagus grandifolia) push only a single flush of growth eavery season.Once that's gone the species is reluctant to replace it during the current growing season(I've been growing a collected beech as bonsai for awhile). The shrivelling leaves probably won't be replaced this season--and you can probably expect further die back down the branches the futher we get into spring. All of this doesn't mean the tree won't eventually pull through. It means its very stressed out and should be LEFT ALONE for at LEAST TWO YEARS to recover. That means providing protection for it when temperatures get below freezing (Winter may be over, but the winter weather is still around--you can't tell if winter's over by the calendar. You have to observe local weather conditions--are you getting the snow that the rest of W.Va. has?) The plant will be killed or further damaged if it's left with it's pot exposed to freezing. Get it into a sheltered spot (outdoors if possible, as indoor humidity level will contribute to further problems with leaves) You are very close to losing the plant. You will most likely lose it if you continue to futz with it. It needs time to recover. Let it.

The Japanese use a method of developing an open center after training the tree to central leader for first 7 or 8 years and then cutting out the center. The trick is to remove only over sized branches (scaffolds should never be more than half the diameter of the trunk at point of connection to the trunk- 1/3 in vigorous cultivars. Once tree begins to bear you can take out the center and crowding branches. In Japan they are capable of getting the same productivity from vigorous rootstocks (aproximately 111) and even higher quality than the best Euro dwarf orchards. Of course they spend a lot more time pruning.

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.

I will take the advice and add eyebolts to strategic places on the uprights for tying the canes instead of doing much weaving. If canes get as big as broomsticks, they won't bend much to create horizontals for flowering. Will they form secondary horizontal canes that will flower? Will long canes be limber enough to bend over the top of the arbor without kinking? Thanks again for the advice and compliments on the arbor. It took a fair amount of thought and design but I enjoyed it.