I love the before and after pictures you guys post.

Jun 27, Smoke tree pruning for a bush is much less laborious. You may allow the extra branches and simply prune limbs to manage shape. The natural splayed nature of growth can be amended by cutting the plant almost to the ground in late winter.

This will force new growth and tighten the overall look of the stumplopping.barted Reading Time: 2 mins. Cut back hard in late winter or early spring to promote growth of new shoots and enhance the lovely leaf coloration of purple-leaved varieties.

Find your Climate Zone.

Note that such hard pruning, while controlling the plant's size, will be done at the expense of abundant flowering. Propagate by layering in late winter or early spring or root softwood cuttings in springHardiness: What's My Zone? Nov 30, To shape your smoke bush plants into an informal hedge, the North Carolina State Extension recommends pruning the shrubs back hard every.

Aug 19, Editor Steve Aitken and JoAnn Viera of Tower Hill Botanic Garden show you how to prune smokebush. Mar 26, We have had a smoke bush for over 20 years that grew into a smoke tree as can happen if pruned to make it that stumplopping.bar were suprised to see that you cut off all the branches of yours not leaving any to enable this tree of yours to stumplopping.bar least- that is what it looks like in your stumplopping.bar least two side shoots on each branch surely should have been stumplopping.bar would stop it from “die back”as Estimated Reading Time: 5 mins.

Nov 08, Unpruned, the smoke bush becomes a large, multistemmed shrub 10 to 15 feet tall and wide. As with Hamlet's dilemma, though, there's really no middle course. If you try to have it both ways -- Estimated Reading Time: 2 mins. Aug 01, He found this video that details the proper pruning technique for these kinds of large bushes/small trees, and basically we learned that a smoke tree should be pruned in winter or early spring by trimming at the branching-off point, to keep the tree from over-sprouting.

John had instead simply cut the branches at their ends, down to the height we wanted the tree to stumplopping.barted Reading Time: 4 mins. Easy to grow in average soils; requires excellent drainage. Tolerates poor, rocky, infertile soils. Water deeply, regularly in first growing season to establish an extensive root system; reduce frequency once established.

Fertilize in spring. Prune heavily every few years to %(1). Pruning is very important to the overall look of the plant because it grows in a rather erratic pattern. Only prune in early spring before the plant leafs out. Crossing, badly formed or damaged branches should be removed back to a main branch. Dead branches are the challenge in keeping a nice form.

By fertilizing young shrubs you can increase both the size and the amount of flowers on the plant.