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Pruning physocarpus darts gold and diabolo

turmericturmeric Posts: 830
in Plants
Can anyone tell me what to do with established physocarpus?  Both darts gold and diabolo in a friend's garden (she has 7!) have reached about 2m high and wide and they're taking over a bit her borders.  They're not really upright like forsythia, more the shape of a small, rounded tree. RHS says Group 2 but these are like small trees so treating them like a forsythia seems wrong as she'll ruin the natural shape, Burncoose seem to imply they're in Group 1 & 2 which is confusing and Hayloft say no pruning required.  So we're a bit confused.  If she wanted to reduce their size overall by about a third but still wanted flowers (although they're not vital as the foliage is so gorgeous) and to try to keep the shape, when and how would you do it? Many thanks.

Posts

  • LoxleyLoxley Posts: 5,698
    Pretty sure you can coppice them, which will result in a thicket of stems next year, in an upright fountain shape. Or you can be more selective and remove half the stems. 
    "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour". 
  • turmericturmeric Posts: 830
    Thanks Loxley.  I don't think she wants to coppice them.  Maybe we'll see if we can work out which stems to cut out and be selective.  Do you know when's the best time to do this without hopefully losing the flowers?
  • KeenOnGreenKeenOnGreen Posts: 1,831
    We used to hard prune ours in late Winter or early Spring.  It didn’t seem to impact flowering at all.  I’m sure you could selectively hard prune some branches with no problems.  
  • LoxleyLoxley Posts: 5,698
    Sometimes it's worth sacrificing one year's flowering to get a shrub back into shape (especially a shrub mainly grown for foliage anyway). But it sounds like there's a good chance you'll still get the flowers anyway. I would grab the bull by the horns...
    "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour". 
  • thevictorianthevictorian Posts: 1,279
    I thought they flower on old wood and this is definitely my experience. I reduced mine by half last year and it has reached the same size, if not bigger, this year. I have some smaller ones that did flower this year but they hadn't been pruned before and I did this after they had flowered so that I would get flowers next year. I plan to keep this regime to maintain their shape and size but still get flowers.  
  • turmericturmeric Posts: 830
    Thanks everyone for all of your suggestions.  My friend and I will, as Loxley suggested, grab the bull by the horns.... :)
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