When to prune beautybush?

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CaptMicha Brookeville, MD(Zone 7a) Jun 10, 2007

I'd really like to take cuttings from my Kolkwitzia amabilis but don't want to mess up flowering next year. When can I do this?

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Equilibrium Jun 13, 2007

This site says the best time to prune is after the plant is done flowering-
http://www.canr.uconn.edu/plsci/mbrand/k/kolama/kolama1.html

Seems as if you are interested in propagating this plant and this site states you should be able to propagate it by taking softwood cuttings in spring and hardwood cuttings in fall so why don't you just wait until the plant is done blooming and tie a ribbon around the branches you'd like to prune and wait until fall to prune those branches so you can use the hardwood cuttings to try to propagate them? Hardwood cuttings have generally been more difficult for me which is why I generally prefer trying to propagate softwood cuttings that I take in mid to late spring.
http://www.abc.net.au/walling/info/pages/ew025.htm

I was poking around for you and found that you could try seed but that you might end up with some interesting variations. How about trying seed?

I also found reference to using suckers to propagate this plant-
http://www.ontariogardening.com/Knowledgebase/species.jsp?id=642

Post #3611662
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CaptMicha Brookeville, MD(Zone 7a) Jun 14, 2007

I'm confused. If I take cuttings in fall or spring, won't that affect flowering?

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Equilibrium Jun 14, 2007

Yes, that does seem sort of weird doesn't it. What I was thinking was that if you waited for the plant to finish blooming and took hardwood cuttings later on, you'd get to enjoy the blooms this season. Since it blooms on old wood, you'd enjoy the blooms this season but you wouldn't get to enjoy bloom where you took cuttings of old wood next year. I guess you might as well try to propagate it from softwood cuttings this year as you're sort of in a loop. This year's softwood cuttings become next year's hardwood. Eesh, no root suckers to nab?

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Resin Northumberland, United Kingdom(Zone 9a) Jun 14, 2007

Depends on how many cuttings you want to take - removing one or two shoots from a decent-size shrub isn't going to have a marked effect on flowering, but taking 50 cuttings off a small shrub definitely will do. If the plant is small, go easy on the number of cuttings!

Resin

Post #3615526
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CaptMicha Brookeville, MD(Zone 7a) Jun 16, 2007

I think I'll take some cuttings from branches along the grass. It won't be noticed next year. Thanks for the info!

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