I have a purple smoke bush in my yard. I know that you can train it to look either like a bush or a tree, but right now it looks like neither. I also doesn't get many blooms. Any advice about how to prune this thing so that it looks like something, and so that it blooms more?
Here's a close up of its leaves
Looks rather shaded, which will reduce flowering. It also tends to flower better on low nitrogen soils; soil rich in nitrogen promotes leaf growth at the expense of flowers. If the lawn is fertilised at all, that would cause this. Finally - the more it is pruned, the less it will flower!
Resin
I have two varieties of Cotinus, They are both about 10 years old. This first one Cotinus coggyria purpureus is shaded by a fairly large Katsura tree. But gets sun from 8:00 am on, I do have very alkaline soil
DonnaS
And this one is Smokebush, Cotinus "Grace", taken from outside the fence because of sun position. Both have been pruned quite heavily over the years to keep them in bounds.
DonnaS
