You don't need to be the bus driver to know what makes the wheels go around. I'm sure a good number of growers know a lot about how milkweed will respond to pruning even if all they use in their predictions is their experience working with other plants. While there are a few plants that don't respond to pruning in ways we might expect (Norfolk Island Pine, for one) most plants (and I mean at least 99%) respond just as you would expect them to respond when you alter the balance of growth regulators that determine whether the plant concentrates it's growing efforts in additive or multiplicative growth. Your plant, is naturally apically dominant, so it wants to grow additively, and it is. To change it's habit temporarily to multiplicative (more branches instead of longer branches) you need to remove the source of the growth regulator (auxin) that is inhibiting multiplicative (lateral) growth. The most significant source of auxin is found in apical meristems (growing branch tips). Dr Carl Whitcomb often notes there is a "4-inch rule" that applies to pruning containerized plants. He suggests that removing an apical meristem affects the growth of other nodes for a distance of about 4" proximal to the cut. So - removing a branch tip affects the growth on that branch for approximately 4" behind that cut. I have a lit of experience doing hard pruning of plants, in which I remove up to 100% of the green growth on a given branch (or even the entire tree). I can attest that harder pruning of one branch can affect the back-budding response of the entire plant. IOW - the harder you prune, the more latent buds you can expect to be activated. Also, as noted above, WHEN you prune and how much stored energy the plant has at the time you prune impacts back-budding response. Healthy trees with lots of stored energy will be much more cooperative when it comes to back-budding than plants that are just getting by. In the picture you posted, I would have either pruned just above the first pair of leaves, then pruned again after the 2 branches that grew from buds in the leaf axils had 3 pairs of leaves - I'd have pruned the secondary branches back to 1 pair of leaves, too. If I had originally pruned back to 2 sets of leaves, I would wait for a week to ensure bud activation in all 4 leaf axils and would remove the top 2 leaves if it didn't occur in the bottom set. You really have a lot of time to pinch most plants. I pinch hardy hibiscus at least 3 times. It gives me shorter, sturdier plants and lots more blooms. In fact, I pinch a LOT of plants very regularly to force them to grow in ways I want them to grow, instead of allowing them to do their own thing. Some plants I've pinched with the specific intent of altering their growth habit: Al

Very good to see this question. Its one that we've been answering for 20 years or so now. YES pinching out is a great way to provide shape to your bush YES pinching out will increase your crop the following year from that specific branch by up to 400% YES you should stop before the wood starts to harden. Normally we pinch out from late June. Only on canes that are getting taller than the overall bush. These will then branch from the cut during July and August. and the fruit buds that would previously only formed on that once cane, will now form on all the new branches. Each cane will normally only be pinched once.We will stop pinching in early August. We have grown blueberries commercially in the UK since 1959, aswell as tending young plants for our mail order business, so we've tested every method possible. Summer pinching definetly works! I hope that helps

I found the one I had back in the mid 1990s to be pretty hardy; the erstwhile management of Forestfarm said their seed came from one in some frost hollow of western WA that had seen very low temperatures by PNW standards. Current management of Forestfarm knows nothing about this...too bad they didn't keep better notes. And, I think this reflect a general thing going on with Forestfarm. They will still have rare plants but not someone - an owner-operator-plant-lover - going through the tedious steps to obtain the "best of all possible rare plants". (always time for a little Panglossian optimism!) I really don't think they are particularly susceptible to fungus for any reason other than having been pumped full of nitrogen to get them into fast growth...when sold as the decidedly odd looking 'mini Christmas trees'. They grow in Texas around the dry line, which certainly can be humid! Years ago someone posted a picture of some big ones in San Antonio. And also of course one grew in North Carolina. I think, south of say Richmond, VA, they are just under planted, and north of it, likely to die back in the coldest of winters.

Dave I understand your analogy and your position that plants of the size I mentioned are beyond the stage at which they should be transplanted into their final growing place, and from my experience I don't doubt that plants would perform better in a longer season if they had been initially transplanted as smaller plants; my big transplants are pretty pooped out by the end of the season (if season was longer, I don't think they would last much longer), while their younger siblings tend to look better and fuller and like they would have a longer healthier lifespan than the bigger transplants had (but though healthier and fuller, the have also produced fewer and later fruits, as mentioned). Is there somewhere I could find more information what effects growth/what is the ideal stage at which to set out? I don't know if it makes a difference up here, if proper transplanting and setting out would still result in later, fewer fruits. Regarding transplanting in general, when I changed up a few things last year I seemed to have poorer root development than prior years. Plants still grew pretty large and produced ok given the weather conditions (maybe excess precipitation acutally helped bring more nutrients to the smaller root systems this summer). I was told by some people here last year that root growth could be improved by allowing plants to become somewhat (or more than somewhat) rootbound in smaller pots before potting up...may explain better performance in other years when I procrastinated before potting up. Did some research and came across the below link among other things. Not sure how old or accurate it is, but the article discusses root development, and seems to indicate the possibility that the more times a plant is transplanted, the less fruit it produces, due in part to damaging effects of translanting on the roots. Besides direct sowing, or planting seeds in 6-inch pots (instead of starters then cells then larger pots) I don't see a practical way to plant in a manner that would avoid all transplanting...and probably tough to plant one or a few seeds per 6-inch pot and have enough room/pots to set up for germination. Ignoring the transplant size issue, any comments on what this article says about transplanting and root development (and applicability to a non-commercial garden, if any)? http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/010137veg.roots/010137ch26.html