Others may correct me,,,I'm still learning too. But think u can prune it anytime during spring and summer but will be cutting off buds ready to bloom. As far as it blooming the rest of the season,,,,will leave that answer to the experts. ;)

Go ahead - cut it back. Your flowers will be a bit later than if you didn't cut it back, but it will flower this year. I haven't done mine yet and wasn't going to this year. I had lots of new growth on the old branches during our early spring heat-wave. Then, we had over a week of very cold nights, some in the high 20's, and all of that nice green growth looks dead now. So I will go ahead and prune them back to about 10 inches.

The only way to keep the size of these plants in check is to prune them in the spring when you start to see some green growth, usually at the bottom of the plant. Mine have gotten awfully large since I've not cut them back for a couple of years. Our winters have been somewhat mild and there has been little die-back on the branches from the last two winters.

Linda

Agreed, spring is the time to trim BB's, mid-April is perfect. The one in the picture absolutely should be trimmed, IMO, or you will have a really floppy, spindly bush this summer.

About halfway up the picture, you could draw a line between the fat, healthy growth and that which should be trimmed - just below the wall behind it. After that, remove the tips of the lower branches, which should also remove all of the dead flowers from last year. Then look at it from different sides and trim anything that is sticking out too far, or growing across the middle.

Most of the removed parts can be rooted to make more bushes.

I went ahead and pruned it. As I got in there, I noticed that some of the branches were so thick and woody that they were splitting lengthwise! I ended up cutting it back a little further than I had planned, but what's left looks nice and healthy. I'll be sure to cut it FAR back this fall/winter so that most of the growth next spring is new. Thanks for the advice!

{{gwi:211924}}

I cut mine back even more than that. Just did it on Sunday. :)

I've been cutting mine back to about 8 to 12 inches every spring and it will still get 7 ft tall by the end of the season. I had to prune mine twice this year. It had early growth due to the warm early temps, then we had a 10 day stretch of hard frosts at night and it damaged the new growth, so I had to go back and prune off the dead part on one particular bush. One didn't make it.

Also, I never prune mine until spring, here in the colder zone 6, because the bush needs all the help it can get going into the winter. I wait for new growth to just start showing in spring and then prune it.

Agreed, BB's should be left alone until you see new growth in the spring.

Yours looks fantastic! Great job! Those pieces on the ground each want to grow a new bush for you... (enable, enable...)

Mine were green all winter and one of them has buds that should open in the next few days. It's wild how early everything is happening in most places. I swear when I lived in OH (5b), it was the norm for BB's to just start showing leaves about this time, mid-April. Am I remembering correctly?

Since BB's produce buds on old and new growth, and they do it rapidly all summer, there shouldn't be any fear about removing buds or delaying flowering, especially in this, the year without a winter. Even mid-summer when I'm deadheading, I'm very generous with the cuts when I see weaker, smaller buds in front of a much more robust node, and usually remove that inferior set. Once the branches get too long, they seem to lose their oomph. Still end up with a bush that's taller than me.

I cut mine and transplanted a few days ago - cut it WAY back, and mine is not as mature as yours.

So far so good, and I expect it to bloom this year (but high expectations), we'll see!