Like most plants in the Ericaceae family, Pieris japonica can be hard pruned....down to just a few inches above ground........and will regenerate nicely. But it will look pretty bad during the regeneration process, which may take several years for the plant to start producing healthy grow and filling in. That may not be the look you want to tolerate for several seasons if this planting is gracing an entryway, as yours appears to be doing :-) Timing is not all that critical but is best done when plant is in active growth rather than winter dormancy. Enjoy the flowers first, then cut it back.

It did, it was just a standard norway spruce - at least that's what the tag said. Like a 4-5' b-and-b. It flushed out a lot of growth last year and survived our bad drought with a lot of manual watering. It did have a lot of excess roots that had 'escaped' the burlap and was quite a nest of roots. In hindsight I probably should have cut them back to avoid a risk of girdling, but I ended up shaking out the wood chips and really watering it in well. Hopefully that doesn't come back to bite me. You think those hard brownish 'lumps' may end up shooting too? Yeah I'm in no rush... I'll at least wait until the other one I have shoots and see what happens.

Sometimes they just need trimming back to keep them in bounds. At our last house I had a blue one that crept out for several feet to where you couldn't even walk around it from the back yard to the side yard. I would cut it back, dig out the new plants and give those to neighbors. It seemed like I would have to do this every 3 to 5 years else the wife would get annoyed. It often would be close to the border line. At my current house I rarely trim any hydrangea except this year I took hedgers to my oldest ones (Lady in Red and a cutting from the blue hydrangea above). Cut them to about half the size and the new growth looks good thus far. The blooms were not as plentiful as they had been in previous years and the spread was getting to be too much.

Olivia can get up to 6+ feet in 2-3 years in California and elsewhere with mild winter. Unlike in the UK, it is definietely not a rose that stays within the 4 feet tall range. In fact most David Austin roses that said 4 feet in height in their catelog will get to at least 5 - 6 feet unless you live in areas with issues of winter die back, in zone 5 - 6. My Olivia got up to 6 feet after 2 years even with extensive summer pruning. It does throw octopus canes. During its first year it reached 4 feet. It is in the back of the my rose bed. You can safely prune those long canes for Olivia. It won't mind at all. After all it is not a once blooming old garden rose which you dont' want to prune at this point of the year. However, if you wish to have rose bushes that stay around 3 - 4 feet with rouind shape, most Austins are not in that category. The exceptions are Munstead Wood and Boscobel, which I managed to keep around 3&1/2 feet tall. Agree with threelittlelights13 that planting in groups may help in the look. My garden is semi-gormal with a lot of boxwood which were planted 1&1/2 feet apart - now all grown together. and helped to create a more formal look. I am not sure that's what you are looking for, and perhaps you just want a neater looking garden. Nevertheless, I included a few photos below. Those in the fronts are Boscobel and Bolero which does stay wtihin 4 feet with pruning. The yellow is Julia Child which actually reached 5 feet in the spring.