If you are in zone 8-9, you COULD cut it off now. I still wouldn't. I guess in somewhere they stay out all winter and don't drop leaves, it would probably be ok. Legginess will still be there in the spring. My duck ate some leaves from a pachypodium (a close DR relative) that I was under the impression were MORE posionous than DR, lived to quack another day(s). Didn't even faze him. Them being more toxic than Oleander...I doubt it...but am certianly no exprt! Just an opinion. I would say Oleander tops them all. I guess if the squirrels puked them up, it wouldn't hurt them? I have no clue about the digestive system of squirrels. But back to pruning...I'd just leave things alone. When you do prune you want to pune at an angle...like make it look like the tip of a brand new lipstick. I hope that makes sense. When you make one cut, three new sets of leaves will grow around the cut. Usually. I've had just two before, but generally three. That's a whole lot of energy the plant puts into growing right at the end of the season and then it will just wilt and die when they have to come in for the winter or whatever. I think it's all an energy thing. All said, these are tough plants and can take a lot...during the growing season. They are a lot more fragile when inside during the winter. And about the poison thing, I wouldn't on purpose feed this plant to anything and will continue to keep my cats away from them!!

I can tell you that any of the Benardella roses (Show Stopper and Power Point) are bred specifically for exhibition form, are not stingy, and are at least hardy to my borderline zone 7a/6b area. I would expect that they are hardy throu zone 6, but I can't guarantee.

I'm sorry if I misunderstood your earlier post. This one may not directly connect with your posts either, but it is information that bears directly on registered names. There are two different things often referred to as "registered". They are quite different and can lead to confusion if not carefully defined. The registration to which I was referring was registering a rose with the International Cultivar Registration Authority - Rosa, which is the American Rose Society. This registration puts the rose in the historical record for roses internationally. It also makes sure no other rose can be registered using the same name. However, it has no control over sales names. Roses are often registered using their code name, or varietal denomination, and their sales names are just listed as synonyms. Thus Veterans' Honor (aka City of Newcastle Bicentennary, Five Roses Rose, and Lady in Red) is registered as Jacopper. The second registration is acquiring a registered trademark for the name. This is the source of the î symbol following names. This comes from the government and supposedly insures that no one else can sell a different rose using the registered trademark name. However, it does not keep the company that trademarked the name from using it for more than one rose. Poulsen, Kordes and others spend a fair amount of time and money registering names with the European trademark authority, and they feel they need to use them often to get the benefit from it. Thus they both do sell more than one rose using the same trademarked name at the same time. I am not aware of any cases where they used more than one trademarked name for the same rose, although I suppose it is possible. Adding confusion to the situation, some companies also trademark the collection names. Thus you could have a rose with a trademarked name being sold in a collection that also has a trademarked name. They could sell the same rose with the trademarked name in more than one collection with a trademarked collection name, or they could sell two roses using the same trademarked name - one in each collection. But no one else can use any of these trademarked names. Finally, the rules say if you register a rose with the ICRA-R, you cannot trademark that registered name. Or if you trademark a name with the government, you cannot use that name to register the rose with the ICRA-R. Life would certainly be easier for all of us if each hybridizer would only use each name once, and no one would try to use a name someone else already used. However, that isn't the world we live in.

No pruning now. You want to prune in late winter/early spring when the forsythia (yellow flowering shrub) is in bloom. In this area, it would be sometime from late March to mid-April. No more fertilizing either (that should have stopped in August). And just as an FYI, "miniature" refers to the size of the bloom, not the size of the plant. I have a couple of minis that will top out at 5' tall this year (they usually range from 3' - 4' tall). Some varieties are smaller, some larger.