Do you want to do this yourself because the process sounds fun to you, or do you just want a tree rose? There is an own-root, ungrafted tree rose for sale that is extremely hardy in the north called Polar Joy. Other roses grafted onto standard form are available mostly through mail order, but in our climate need to be brought indoors in the winter or else the graft(s) will freeze. If you want to do this yourself, I would try it with a very hardy/vigorous/thick-stemmed rose. William Baffin comes to mind. I bet eventually he could be pruned to a standard. And he is vigorous enough that you could probably get a nice thick standard form within 3 years or so. You need to start from the begining and train the rose to a single leader like any standard topiary. It will take a while, esp. in the north.

It's been over 6 months since our last deep freeze, so I thought it was about time to give an up-date. All of the Olive Trees showed signs of freeze damage. Many of the leaves and smaller branches turned brown and eventually died. I would estimate that about 1/3 of the outer foliage had some sort of damage. I waited until May before removing any of the burnt looking foliage whatsoever. It's now the middle of August and the trees look green and healthy. The Oleanders and Changsha Orange didn't make it. However, I am happy to report, after turning all brown and looking quite dead, the Climbing Figs made a 100% recovery. In fact, they look better than they have in years (probably due to all the new growth). Looking around the neighborhood, it appears that most gardens suffered similar damage as mine. One can still see some dead limbs and leaf burn which hasn't yet been removed. A few homes lost some marginal hardy plants/trees like Eucalyptus and Sago Palms. But overall, it's now hard to tell that we ever experienced such cold weather. I am now back in Ireland, completing the end of a two-year assignment. If our Olive Trees make it through this winter, I plan to attach photos so everyone can see.

I did a google search on Black Knot and Prunus Virginiana and you are right! Thank you so much! I see a site mentions that you have to remove all infected branches and sterilize the equipment every time you cut off a branch. Does that sound right? Hilde

Now that my memory has been jogged...I remember Kenny! I'm so happy he's doing SO well! Sounds like he has a pretty good life going!*S* Anyone here that wants to send a card, please do. I'm sure it would thrill them. I thought I'd deleted that part, because I didn't want anyone to think I was posting the update to get them to send cards.