I am in Colorado, about 50 miles north of Denver. My mulberry trees were here when I moved in 12 years ago. They were large then, 25 ft at least, Four trees covered a large area of our yard. We have removed all but One now, and are considering taking that one out as well. My concern is that, as stated above, the birds and squirrels love them. To anyone wanting to know why grow a mulberry, that is the answer. They totally ignore the cherry tree right next to them. I would love to keep them in some form, but don't have room for the large tree. I have potted up a few of the seedlings and am going to try them as bushes. Wish me luck.

Yeah, I don't really bother with standards because they do require extra pruning, particularly after the first flush of flowers to head back those growing laterals. Because standard roses will bloom on new wood, you can be fairly harsh with the pruning and shaping, just do it between flushes. Basically, like all pruning, you are doing it for shape and size control (which is why little and often is better than stimulating the rose into overdrive with a hard prune), control of disease and passage of air (take out tiny twigs, inward growing canes to keep the centre open). Usually, the rose trunk should be clear so you may have to pinch out developing buds along the trunk but as a rule, it is the same as pruning hybrid teas but just do an extra summer cut to shape - and with some vigorous weeping types, you might need to trim throughout the year, just to maintain a compact shape. Winter pruning is when you need to consider the whole bush since this is the time we can take off extra wood without the rose immediately breaking into new growth-you can really cut the head of the bush tight while keeping an open centre. A bit like pruning for fruiting spurs on apples, I do the pruning in dead of winter rather than spring, when I am attempting to keep a plant a bit more compact and neat. Much also depends on your climate (which I have moved the page on and cannot recall) so someone near you may well chime in with a more considered and nuanced reply.

Thank you for the replies. Poet's jasmine is Jasminum officinale, and is a vigorous plant. That's a good point about reducing air circulation. I think what I will do is plant the jasmine and see how it does in my situation. That way I can get a feel for it. What a wonderful picture of the banksia! And the doubles are fragrant? Hmm. The idea to run a cylinder around the tree I like, spikes in the tree were worrying me a bit, even though I think it's big enough to handle some injury, there's always a risk. Douglas firs tend to have kind of a starfish pattern to their roots, I'm pretty sure that I'll be able to dig between the roots fairly far out and have reasonable moisture. I've notice that our ground tends to stay moister in the summer under the trees than way outside them; perhaps because I have sandy soil? I don't know. I was actually more worried that the water for the rose would be too much for the tree's roots! I'll have to go dig some holes to make sure there's room for the roses; but I don't anticipate a problem, I planted some Japanese Maple seedlings on the other (slightly shadier north) side of it, and the roots didn't interfere there. I'll take a look at Treasure Trove, what a wonderful name; and the Gardenia thread makes it sound promising too. Plus, the amusement value of telling unsuspecting people that I have a Gardenia growing into a tree is immense!

Thanks for the diagram! I will save it to my images