Thank you for the information. I will try selectively pruning back the longest branches and see if that helps.

i think its a plant with too much potential, planted too close to the house ...you can learn a lot about pruning, beating these things back over the years ... but in the back of your mind.. consider removal as the ultimate pruning .....

see link ... note the key words for pruning shrubs ....

ken

https://www.google.com/search?q=Ilex+glabra&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=Ilex+glabra+rejuvenation+pruning

Thank you. There are a lot of issues and at least these stay neat, so removing them is on the back burner. We have 3 foundation gardens that have a depth of between 3 and 4ft and are planted with everything from arbs to burning bush. Goal is to redo all 3 to look similar. Is there anything that gets 5 ft tall that could be planted in an area like that? Thank you for the pruning info.

I pruned selected branches, taking the overall height down by over a foot. They look a little better. Will do more in early spring. Thank you for your help.

cut back as hard as you want in March

Thank you. Will do!

Taking it down by a foot will just make it bushier on top and won't cure the bare legs. For that you need to take selected branches right off at ground level.

I removed the tallest branches as low as I could go while maintaining an ok look. mostly I could take them down a bit lower than half way

floral - can I do this in stages?

I don't know your climate but in mine I could cut selected branches to the base at any time. To get a good full shrub stems need to be cut at the base, not part way down. You could do half the stems one year and the other half a year or two later.

Hi guys, I am ready to reduce the size of these holly... I read, watched youtube, but still not sure... Would prefer not to upset people by cutting these shrubs to the ground. Can I cut down to a 2 - 3ft shrub? Would I be better cutting 1/4 of the shrub to the ground each year? Thank you for looking.

Dalton, look back at what was said last time. The idea is not to partially cut all the stems down but to cut some of them right down. The way it works is that the plant will grow from the next bud below where you cut so cutting the top will not cause growth from the base. Cut some now and next year. Don't cut where the yellow line is - that will not get the base of the shrubs to fill out. It will just make the top denser and they'll still have bare legs. To be brutally honest they are pretty boring shrubs and if they were mine I'd cut the whole lot to the base in one go. But if you don't want to do that do as explained before and again above.

I think if you cut glabra down to maybe a foot or so, it will send up suckers to fill in below. But I've not done this. I'd go for it.

Thank you floral_uk for your ALWAYS stellar advice and I definitely agree. But I have to contend with the humans. lol. My hesitation is that each shrub has only 4 - 6 stems, if I take 1 - 2 i fear it will look worse. Dave in NoVA, thank you for the suggestion. I didnt know they would sucker!

I did read they inkberry bud on old wood, maybe I compromise... see if I can get 1 stem to the ground this year and try to make them less "V" shaped and shorter this year?

Thank you