Thanks for your comments! Rick, I'm keeping the plant @ 65-70F under lights 12 hours or so a day, and the lower branch axils have buds waiting to pop. I brought this plant and its siblings indoors about a month ago, and I'm starting to think the multicolored LED has stimulated the new leaf buds right on top - it's where much of the light strikes it. I thought for a few days it was flower buds - no such luck :( Tyler, the white specks are just light reflecting off the leaves, everything was sprayed with neem oil before I brought them inside, so no creepy crawlies. I've been watering once a week and not fertilizing at all, trying to let the plants rest. The prospect of a long three way branch on top of this skinny guy is not nice.

I can't tell for sure from your photo, but is that a borer hole in the middle of the cut end of the dead cane portion in question? If it is, removing the damaged section to live, good growth will produce and expose a fresh cut that will be vulnerable to future borer damage that will need to be addressed. Most folks who have borer problems seal fresh cut ends to prevent new borer invasions. If the dead section is due to borer damage, the soon to emerge insect may still be in the stem or it may be old borer damage and the resident insect is long gone. The stem will continue to die down to the point where the insect's tunnel terminates. Some borer tunnels go down as far as the crown! Everything has to be cut back to tunnel free good wood then the cut end sealed. If that dark spot in the photo is not a borer hole, I do what Marlorena does, cut back by increments to good, white pith wood. All growth above that point is sacrificed.

I have a 10 ft high weeping norway spruce and support it to grow straight up. I plan to cut the leader off one year and let it cascade down via several side branches. That tree I once cut the leader off when 7 ft tall, but then decided to continue to let it grow taller. So I bent up a side branch at the top, tied it to a stick of bamboo, and it continued growing straight up, making that side branch its new leader. You could do it too, after cutting off the top hanging over.

Olivia can get up to 6+ feet in 2-3 years in California and elsewhere with mild winter. Unlike in the UK, it is definietely not a rose that stays within the 4 feet tall range. In fact most David Austin roses that said 4 feet in height in their catelog will get to at least 5 - 6 feet unless you live in areas with issues of winter die back, in zone 5 - 6. My Olivia got up to 6 feet after 2 years even with extensive summer pruning. It does throw octopus canes. During its first year it reached 4 feet. It is in the back of the my rose bed. You can safely prune those long canes for Olivia. It won't mind at all. After all it is not a once blooming old garden rose which you dont' want to prune at this point of the year. However, if you wish to have rose bushes that stay around 3 - 4 feet with rouind shape, most Austins are not in that category. The exceptions are Munstead Wood and Boscobel, which I managed to keep around 3&1/2 feet tall. Agree with threelittlelights13 that planting in groups may help in the look. My garden is semi-gormal with a lot of boxwood which were planted 1&1/2 feet apart - now all grown together. and helped to create a more formal look. I am not sure that's what you are looking for, and perhaps you just want a neater looking garden. Nevertheless, I included a few photos below. Those in the fronts are Boscobel and Bolero which does stay wtihin 4 feet with pruning. The yellow is Julia Child which actually reached 5 feet in the spring.