It's not a tree, especially when a specimen with multiple trunks - just a largish growing shrub :-) 'Grace' and her smaller Asian smokebush cousins are routinely coppiced all over and to great effect. Just Google "Cotinus 'Grace, coppicing" and see how many hits turn up. FTM, all manner of trees can be coppiced or pollarded as well - coppicing is simply a pruning technique that can be applied to a various assortment of species to reduce height, encourage stem growth and emphasize foliage size and coloring. Eucalyptus, catalpa, paulownia, robinia, corylus and a number of other species are often coppiced for ornamental purposes - willows, oaks, lindens and hornbeams were traditionally coppiced/pollarded for timber. Maureen, you could cut it all the way back but I think that's a bit too severe. I prefer to develop a permanent above ground framework and cut back annually to that point. Technically this called pollarding rather than coppicing but the terms seem to be used somewhat interchangeably - I think of 'pollarding' as more appropriate to trees that have a distinct trunk and where the permanent framework is maintained quite high. Where you develop that framework is your choice - I've seen it done around chest height (that's how I prune my own), about waist height and lower like yours. The higher the permanent framework, the larger the shrub will be that season, so how big a shrub you want for that particular spot will be the determining factor. The chest-high framework of my cotinus produced annual growth that reached about 8-9' high each season. And no flowers, of course :-)

Xanthora, Transplant it as soon as the leaves fall off NOW. This gives all the fall and winter for it to root in. You are in zone 9. Border line for this plant. Then, in February, before the leaves come out, CUT THE STEMS above the main trunk ALL THE WAY DOWN. THat is coppicing. You will have a trunk and then it will come up and there will be NO branches at all. Just stubs. In my opinion, I would not standard a smoke bush. I have seen them at nursery's, and I am sure they use a smaller variety to do this, but still, I wouldn't have done it. Do this every spring before the leaves form and it should look gorgeous. It will put all of it's energy into growing stems and leaves instead of blooming. My smoke bushes would bloom anyway, and have the nice color display. Don't ever cut a smoke bush by half. It will look terrible. Coppicing is cutting a shrub all the way TO THE FRAME. Not to the ground. (you can cut to ground with smoke bush). Hope it looks good for you in the spring!

rhizo thank you for your feedback. You make a very good point. It has started to rebound a bit in the past couple of weeks with growth mainly at the very top. But combined with nearby trees (some of which I felled during the winter to get more light to this area) I don't see it ever producing the kind of growth that it would need to look attractive underneath this canopy of top growth. My thinking is that if I give it till next spring (way too late now I agree) it will have had 3 summers to photosynthesize since the roots were cut (August '06) and hopefully repair a large enough chunk of its root system to push out new growth in '10. Am I wrong? My wife and I loved the catalpa and want to give it the needed time to recoup, but beyond this year I just don't want to keep looking at a scraggly tree especially with a relatively small yard and so many other trees I would happily plant. My feeling is if worst case, it doesn't shrub out, I grind the stump and plant something else.

Ok, my suggestion may sound a little crazy, but bare with me. I planted hazelnuts(2) when we first moved to our property, one other was already here.. All have nice trunks, but do sucker. Since yours are all suckers my guess is someone has already done the "chainsaw guy" thing and this is the result. I would start selectively harvesting some of the whips until you have a size clump you want. Then I would braid and intertwine the outside suckers. They will grow together with an very interesting trunk formation over time. I have used the cut limbs for intertwined fencing over the years and it is very pretty. Only draw back is it rots relatively fast. My three filberts have not been pruned, except to limb up to walk under or provide more sun for the shade garden under for the last ten years. (I used to prune them religiously, but....) They are each multi trucked and are a focal point in the yard. The trees got rave reviews at the engagement party held in the back yard a couple of years ago. They have a paths weaving around a variety of ferns, hellebores, pacific bleeding hearts, sweet woodruff and other woodland plants in their shade. The catkins provide winter/early spring pollen and feed for the Anna's hummingbirds, and the nuts provide food for scrub and stellar jays. Of couse there are the squirrels too. Good luck on your project. I love our filberts and hope you can get yours looking the way you want.