I was just thinking about how close I could put some cherry bushes together. In this woodline near my home there are some black walnuts that close together. Nature planted them that way. Some have really interesting trunks from their desire to reach for the sun. Kinda neat in a non-golf course tree kinda way.

Your chance for blooms next year pruning now may be dependent on your weather this season...If you don't wait any longer I think you at least have a chance for buds to set in late summer in what must be a Z8 climate (?). If your azaleas are healthy you can cut them back to the desired 4' or even lower - unlike large leafed rhododendrons, azaleas have dormant buds all along their stems just under the bark and will sprout from immediately below any cut you make. If they are too tall at 6' and 4' is ideal, you may want to cut them back even lower - or be faced with another major pruning job in a few short years.

If you are serious about wanting a more tree like appearance, you have to provide this plant with way more light. Over the course of three weeks or so, gradually introduce it to more and more light. Ultimately it should be getting full sun for a minimum of half a day, but would even be better all day. You plant is currently etiolated (severely lacking light) which is why it looks so stretched out and the leaves are elongated. Pruning it now will only result in more of the same, unhealthy growth. The other thing the plant needs to get thicker stems is time. Not a year, not two years, but many years. In maybe five years you could expect to have a plant that doesn't look like a cutting anymore, assuming you start giving it an appropriate amount of light. When properly grown, the stems will be much thicker and the plant will generally look much more substantial. Despite the fact I've recommended against pruning at this point, no one ever wants to do things the patient way, so here are some quick tips about pruning Jades. Always prune just above a leaf node. The stem will die back to the node, so there is no reason to leave any more than necessary. Jades will almost always branch at the node you just pruned above. So, if you want it to branch in a particular spot, prune just above that node. You can prune as little or as much as you want. You could prune all the way down to the soil, and as long as the plant had some roots to begin with, and is kept warm, it will produce new leaves and go right back to growing. Spring and early summer are the best time to prune. That second plant is "Elephant's Food," Portulacaria afra. Everything I said for the Jade goes for that plant too. Finally, welcome to GardenWeb!

you can pretty much chop 'em off at ground level and they'll come back. Sorry but I have never found that to be the case. Your weather in south Texas is stressful enough on the plants right now and most plants would be long past their prime anyway there. Adding the stress of unnecessary pruning to it will likely finish it off. Trim off what you must of course but I'd advise leaving as much of the plant as possible and treat it aggressively for the spider mites. But keep in mind that spider mites are notorious for bing almost impossible to control/eliminate. Dave