It is up to you. No deterrent. They could bloom a week or so later. Or, not. All depends on the weather. If you don't prune them, and if they are hybrid teas, they will get really tall, and you will have blooms way up there. I didn't prune the past two years, and all of the blooms on the hybrid teas were 7'+ in the air. Delightful (not). So, down they will go this year. If I prune as usual, by the beginning of June (I usually prune at the end of March), the plants are full and 4' - 5' tall. When I prune, I typically have a minimum of 2" of new growth and some plants are totally leafed out by the time I prune. I have some plants with 2" of growth now. No matter, off it goes. But, if you don't want to, don't. Then, take a look at them after they bloom and proceed as hoovb said. Don't overthink pruning.

seil: I've had this peace rose for about 5 or 7 years now and its always grown the same way... in a large T shape and always full of blooms along that top T line. This last year its been a real pain. I have had it tied up along a fence then moved it and tied it up along a flat straight up trellis attached to the side of our redwood shed. This year its been a real brat and not wanting to cooperate with me. Hopefully now that I've hacked it down to the stump and this new growth is taking off, it will look better. When I had it along the fence my neighbor would come out and cut it down level with the top of the fence. Every year I saw buds starting to form the next day I would come out and look to see the entire top level with the top of the fence. So my husband and I dug it up and moved it away from that fence where the neighbor couldn't reach it. ANYTHING that grows up above the top of that fence they hack right off. Yes I've asked them not to touch our things. Even balled my eyes out after they dug up my flowers from my front yard right before mothers day this year. I yelled at them through tears on mothers day... Would you PLEASE leave my yard alone!! Stop touching my things!! Mind your own property and leave ours alone!! We still hold out hope that the peace rose is going to look better next year now that its out of the reach of our hacker happy neighbor.

In general, I do not prune much at all, and when I do it, it is only to keep a pathway open or to remove a branch with diseased foliage. My garden becomes a huge jungle, but a very productive one. In our heat (the last two summers, we have increasingly had occasional days with a high temp between 108-115 much more than we had them in past years) and in a garden with full sun for most of the day, I feel like the tomato plants need all the foliage they have in order to reduce sunscald and also to produce well. Remember that the foliage is the photosynthesis factory that keeps the plants producing. For every bit of foliage you remove, you're reducing the plants' ability to conduct photosynthesis. Benefits? Better air circulation if your plants are next to a structure, a stockade fence, or too close to one another. Perhaps a lower rate of foliar disease due to better air circulation and less foliage, but some years we are so dry we see little foliar disease here anyway. Perhaps bigger fruit but only because you'll have less fruit since the limbs you remove are not there to produce more fruit. Make sense? Negatives.? Less photosynthesis capacity due to lessened foliage. More sunscald. Fewer fruit overall, though the ones you get may be bigger....if you can keep them from sunscalding long enough to break color. Then, if you're worried about sunscald, you always can pick them at the breaker stage and bring them inside to ripen indoors. Because I want for every plant I grow to produce as much as possible, I try to not prune off anything at all, so cannot advise you on how much to prune. You know, if you decide to do it, you could prune some of the plants and leave the others alone and see which ones do better for you. If you prune and start seeing sunscald, you can errect shade cloth (kinda pricey, but it works) over your plants. I use shade cloth over pepper and tomato plants (only some tomatoes, not all) beginning in July in order to keep them producing longer and better in the extreme heat and long sunny days. By keeping the plants partially shaded, you can keep them happier in extreme heat and they will continue to produce longer as long as you don't use a shade cloth with a high degree of shading. I have 40% shadecloth and 50% shadecloth. Growing up in Texas, no one that I knew who gardened regularly ever pruned their tomato plants, and my memory dates back to the 1960s, Everyone caged them and used good spacing and let them produce all the foliage they could in order to prevent sunscald. I've always gardened that way and always have been happy with the results. I also do not necessarily follow good spacing rules every year. Sometimes I put the plants much closer together than I should, aware that doing so will give me a dense jungle, but I don't care, as long as I get tomatoes and lots of them. In some very wet years (2004 and 2007 come to mind), with lots of rain and high humidity, I did prune off the bottom couple of feet of foliage at mid-season to deter Early Blight. Most years, good mulching and good watering practices (putting the water on the ground, not on the plants) keep Early Blight under control but in a year where it rains every second or third day, we see more issues here with diseases like Early Blight, Bacterial Speck, Bacterial Spot or Septoria, and in years like that, I think that pruning lower foliage is beneficial but I won't do it until the plants already have set tons of tomatoes. Dawn

Okay, for better or worse,here it is! You'll note I decided to leave the Side leaves on though. I couldn't be that diabolic....yet.I plan to grow everything inside this year we had a long hot summer with plenty of 100+ degree days last year and it sent my plants into dormancy. By the time they did put out, it was damned near the first frost. Plus I have a neighbor who I'm pretty sure swiped one or two of my potted ones last year too. That's good to know LeafEricson, I've already got the cuttings in small pots!! I'll let you know what happens !!