"Zootal" wrote in message
...

Let's elaborate on this a bit - I have a stand of honeysuckle that is
about 6-7 feet tall, maybe 4 feet across. It is more dead then alive, IOW
the middle of it is old growth, and the outside is nice and green. I want
to hack it off at about 1 foot high to get rid of all of the dead growth.
Can I cut it back this much?


I had a honeysuckle that was already growing along the fence and up a garage
wall of the house I'd bought. It was a mess, lots of bare and dead tangled
stuff. After two fruitless years of trying to get it looking half ways
decent with careful pruning I just decided to hack it right off at the
ground, and this was in July. I honestly thought I'd killed it, didn't do a
thing the rest of the year, no watering, no fertilizer. That next spring it
sprung up and grew beautifully. Then I was able to keep on top of the
situation. I say hack it off. If you do kill it, which is highly unlikely,
the plants are cheap, you can start again.

Val