You've got the right idea. You can tie or weigh vertical branches down so that they will start fruiting in future years, or if it will be too much trouble doing that, or if there are too many verticals that will just shade the lower branches too much, you can just prune them off. You'll probably need to do the same thing each and every year for the life of the tree if you want to maximize fruiting wood and sunlight penetration into the lower portions of the tree. In the end, it's your tree, and it's up to you how much effort you want to put into training it and pruning it into the form that you want, because the tree doesn't know what's best for you -- the tree basically only knows how to grow either up or out in a response to maximize sunlight to all its leaves, not to the fruit or fruit buds. It is therefore up to you, and not the tree, to shape the tree any way that you want, to maximize fruiting and sunlight penetration, or whatever your goal is. Prune that puppy into shape. Or not. It's your tree and your decision. And you can take pleasure in all of it, from stick to bud to fruit to stomach.

Yeah. Its nothing like my Tomcots. It has full sun. No shade whatsoever. Its hard to tell in the pic, but I would say its at least 14ft tall! I can't find my hand pruners. Kids! I'll be pruning and/or branch bending. I really don't want a 50ft tall apricot :)

Yes, Mr. Lincoln, and you might look at Kirsten Poulsen. I believe it has the same upright habit that my Else Poulsen has. Don't know how tall you want the rose to be. In my small garden, I'm always encouraging upright growth, but Else needs no help, and there's never any sprawling. I'm sure there are many upright growers, but these are the two I am familiar with. Lou

Just found your post--I carried over some ivy geraniums from last year and I am letting them fall by their own wt. I had trimmed them way back in the fall after bringing them indoors for the winter. They have filled out real nice. I have them in a sun room that gets lots of light so I just keep them potted. They get white flies in the house so I spray with a soap/alcohol solution about once a week along with a good spray of water. Kathryn