If the underlying cane stubs are damaged, trimming the shoots will not help. Do shoots coming from certain areas of old wood have smaller leaves than normal and blind growth? If so, you didn't prune enough in spring, and the plant needs to be forced to produce basals from further down. I am guessing this on the basis of reports that PNW zones 7 and 8 had temperatures near zero last winter. At temperatures somewhere between 10 and zero, canes of most hybrid teas will sustain internal damage, and the shoots they produce from these areas will never amount to anything. You probably already know this, but, since you didn't respond to the point, I thought I should raise it again.

Mr. Lincoln will be a tall lanky plant. It will shoot up 4-5 canes from the bud unions and have one or perhaps 3 blooms on top. So yes it will even out if you cut back spent blooms about 2 feet. That's what I do, otherwised he'll get to 7-8 feet. I would just leave the rest alone this year. Perhaps next spring he'll put out some new basals and then you'll have more canes and a bushier plant. I also do spray my Mr. Lincoln, he is prone to black spot. Oh, and get your nose ready for some fantastic smelling blooms!

Welcome. I live near Greensboro but come over to WS often as we have an active native plant group that alternates meeting between the two areas. I am not a purist and do have a few iris, too, but I am afraid they don't get much TLC from me. Anyway, if you are interested in coming to any of our meetings or our hikes, just email me off-list.I think there is a combo holiday meeting soon with the local butterfly chapter. You might be interested in that group, too. I also know many people who are in several of the bird groups. As all gardeners know, we have to have those butterflies, birds, and many beneficial insects in order to have great plants! Again, welcome, and I hope you enjoy the area!

As I remember it one in two rows of several each near what may have been the main entrance to the green at the Foster Golf Links in Tukwila, WA turned out to have a trunk 12 ft. 4 in. around when I taped it. But I'd have to check now to be sure what the exact dimensions were. The record is in Champion Trees of Washington State by Robert Van Pelt. The two rows may have been left from a production nursery that previously occupied the river bottom soil there, I don't know. Last time I drove by and looked over (the site is not on a route I frequent) I did not see the trees. Maybe the new 15,000 sq. ft. club house was built over them in 2004, or they were removed for other reasons. http://www.fostergolflinks.com Trees of Seattle - Second Edition by Arthur Lee Jacobson lists separate individuals 45 ft. tall, 36 1/2 ft. by 8 ft. 7 1/4 in. by 40 ft.* and 30 ft. by 6 ft. 8 in. in three different locations in that city. To a certain extent the diameter of a tree tends to approximate 1/3 of its circumference. So apparently the thickest trunks Jacobson taped were one about 2 1/2 ft. through and another roughly 2 ft. He did most of his measuring for the Second Edition in 2004-5. *Height by stem circumference by average crown spread