dave weil wrote:

However, when I say it defoliates after blooming, I don't mean the
entire plant. I just mean that some of the more spindly growth drops
leaves. Right now, my bush is growing like gangbusters. If it follows
the trend of its 3 year lifespan, it will easily be 25 feet by 9 feet
by the end of the season. I actually trim the right side of the bush
to give me a path next to my fence garden. If I had known how wide it
was going to grow, I'd have planted it at least two feet to the left.

I never really noticed it but it's at the bottom of the yard and I'm not
down there all that much. I'll go out tomorrow and see what it looks like.

I would think that it doesn't matter when you prune it really. All of
the growth that comes out this season will be old wood next spring.
It's obvious that if you take a cane, it won't be there for blooming,
but I don't think you have to worry about pruning right after
blooming, unless you're trying to stimulate new growth in certain
areas of the plant.

It blooms on last year's wood, not all old wood. That means that if you
prune heavily (for instance to make it only 7 feel tall instead of 12)
late in the fall, you are going to be cutting much of the current year's
growth which is where the blooms will be next year. You are unlikely to
lose all the blooms but it will be much less of a show. I did this a
few years back. The catbirds had built a nest and my wife didn't want
me to prune it while they had their young in there. I waited. Then I
pruned it hard in the fall. The following spring there was not much in
the way of flowers. Perhaps there were other factors but it's bloomed
well all the other years.

I saw them. Very nice. Do you have a pic of the whole bush? Also, are
your blooms that shade, or is this a function of your camera? Mine is
a little different than the ones on the second link. The color on the
first link looks more correct to me.

If memory serves, the second set were late in the day as the sun was
setting so they may be a bit more red/orange in the pictures than in
reality. Also, I may have darkened them up a bit on the computer.
Still some flowers are quite pink, others more pale pink. I don't
really have a good picture of the whole bush (which is really about 6
seedlings that were planted much too close together and are growing as
one huge shrub. I'll see if I can get one. I'm way overdue to update
my What's In Bloom page, anyway.

I really like this plant. I think it looks pretty cool even when it's
*not* in bloom. I can imagine a 100 foot length of this. I only wish I
had the room...

Ditto.

--
Henry