There are certain commonly shared ways in which visual elements are perceived, a tree shape makes a plant an accent point - same as green is soothing and red is the color of alarm, and so on. That is how it is possible to produce visual effects using architecture, landscape design and interior design. Pruning to control size will not make plant shown not a tree shape - unless already established internal structure is destroyed.

Party at roses4ever's house! ; ) Now whatever happened to Steve Scanniello? Sure, he invites us to prune his roses on Easter weekend last year, of all weekends, and then disappears. I've noticed a phrase coined around some of these forums "the pot ghetto" - don't know when that started because I haven't been hopping around here but (getting to the point) I have what I will now call a "rose ghetto", lots of roses waiting to be trained, sprayed or something! Roses4ever, yours look great and might get me off my b*tt to do something about mine. Datdog, I think I might have posted this already but I did manage to find an escargot this year. Doesn't look anything like yours yet. Steve, have you noticed Phytolacca americana "Melody" at Seneca Hill?

The $64,000 question is which is better, a daphne odora with impeccable foliage and no flowers or one with tons of blooms and marginal foliage ? Of course, the $1,000,000 answer is one with both awesome foliage and loaded with blooms :-) Just a thought, perhaps your soil might be a bit too acidic with all that mulch. Someone told me a long time ago when I planted mine to ring the dripline with 5/8" minus gravel so that each time I watered it, it would leach a bit of lime into the root system. He showed me several on the low side of a gravel parking lot that were extremely healthy. Mine now have impeccable foliage, although I don't have the bloom you do, hence the above question and answer segment :-)

True, Daphne require good drainage but they also require adequate moisture to survive. The term "good drainage" doesn't mean dry conditions and these terms can be easily confused. If not given adequate water, well-drained soil can quickly create dry soil. Daphne can't tolerate dry conditions and they can die from lack of moisture in a short amount of time. Perhaps the Daphne 'Briggs Moonlight' mentioned in previous post is thriving because the "extensive drainage problems" were helping it get the required amount of moisture to survive. For the Daphne 'Summer Ice' mentioned above I would suggest getting it out of the greenhouse and planting in the ground in average or better soil and giving it ample amounts of water on a regular basis until established and then normal watering after. If you are going to keep it in the greenhouse, watch out for old flowers staying on the plant and rotting which can lead to disease in stems and then dieback of that stem which sounds like the symptoms you might be having. Greenhouse conditions usually encourage heavy flowering in a high humidity environment, which is not an ideal situation for Daphne. Good luck with your Daphne and we are all hoping it makes it. The Daphne t. 'Summer Ice' is a fairly easy variety to grow and will survive nicely in decent soil with normal care and watering in the landscape. I have three of the 'Summer Ice' in my front yard that have grown very well for years. They produce flowers almost all year for me here in Oregon and are a wonderful addition to the yard. The scent on a warm evening is amazing! I also have 'Lawrence Crocker', genkwa, 'Wilhelm Schacht', odora 'Marginata', X houtteana, jasminea, 'Brigg's Moonlight', 'Napolitana', and Edgewortia c. growing well in my landscape with no special care or soil. I'm also going to be planting other daphnes soon.