How to prune my red tipped photenia to encourage bushyness?

Question

My young photenia's are tall and skinny and leaning over. How do I prune them to encourage fullness and uniformity?

Answer 1

You can prune the summer thru-- look at the shrub-- decide where you want more fullness-- and take out a branch in that place. Don't take more than 1/3 of the shrub at any one time. The principle is this-- when you remove a growing tip (not just the tip-- most of the branch) you will make the shrub replace that branch. Usually with two new growth points-- making more fullness. If you've grown basil and pinched out the flowers-- it's the same principle and it works on basil, too-- just about every growing thing but kids.
This is a practice thing-- but there are sites for information-- and your library will probably have the Reader's Digest gardening book-- or anyone's for that matter-- the big box stores have a rack of how to books-- including yard work, pruning, prennials-- you have the picture.
The red tipped photenia is a very forgiving plant.
good luck

Answer 2

Are your's still alive? All 40 of mine died from a fungus. Anyhow if you are going to prune them do it every year. Just keep cutting the tops out and try to shape them as best you can.
I let mine go for 2 yrs and then I could not reach the tops. They eventually got about 25' before I had to have them all cut down. I planted Leland Cypress' in their place