pruning

I just move into a house that has overrun gardens. When can I start to cut back the bushes and shrubs? Lilacs, forsythia,rose of sharron, bittersweet,wisteria, and japonica among them.

Lilacs, forsythia, and wisteria I'd wait until after they bloom, otherwise you'll be cutting off this year's blooms (although if the garden is so overgrown that this year's blooms don't matter to you then prune away!) Rose of Sharon I think blooms on new wood so you could prune it and it would still bloom this year. Bittersweet I don't know anything about, and I have no idea what "japonica" is...do you have another name for that one? Unfortunately "japonica" is a species name and there are a number of different genera of plants that have species with that name so without having another name for it, it'll be very hard to tell you whether you ought to wait until after it blooms to prune it or not.

I agree totally with Ecrane when she tells you to hold on till after this years flowers have came and gone, that way you will learn even more of what is in your new houses garden, remember some of your plants / bulbs etc may still be under ground in your zone as they wont come through till the soil has warmed up, so over here we always say never dig a garden that has been growing well before you took it over as you will kill ot throw out some good plants, just keep looking around your garden as the spring goes into summer and put a garden cane with label on it beside all the plants you either dont want, wish to keep but move elsewhere, or needs cutting back, most plants will be fine when cut back say end of summer, but much later than that in your zone and any new growth could be killed by cold or frost, try to make labels for your plants as you go along with the saw/ loppers etc as once cut right back you might not remember what they are till they really get going again. If you still have to cut back older trees / shrubs before the spring this year, I would always settle for cutting back half of the shrub / tree this year so you dont kill the whole plant, then next year cut back the other side, this will keep the sap, energy and flowers going this year so it has time to recover from such drastic pruning which will maybe cause such shock to the lovely plants you mention and you could over cut them and lose them. After cutting back, add some good quality plant food and a top dressing of good compost around the roots to preserve moisure when the weather really heats up the soil. good luck. WeeNel.

My buddy Nick Federoff has a pamphlet he's authored on pruning. You can see a bit of it here: http://www.adrenalineradio.com/pdf/Pruning_Booklet_PDF_Sample.pdf

Thank you so much for the advice. I guess I just need others to tell me to be patient. It will be fun to see what surprises pop out of the ground in the coming months! I guess the wisteria is the only thing crucial now to get it off the shutters and down spouts before it gets to heavy with leaves and flowers.
The japonica is also called a flowering quince. It gets pink flowers in the spring along with nasty thorns, and then ugly green appleish (Is that a word?) things supposed to be poison to humans. It then just has green leaves and of course the thorns until frost when it is becomes smoothe branches all winter.My family had one in their yard and I never really liked it but my husband thought it wonderful! Thanks again for the timely advice.

OK, the quince you need to wait until after bloom as well (assuming you care if it blooms this year or not). The fruit's not poisonous...people use it to make jelly. I'm not sure if you can eat the fruits on their own though or if they have to be cooked into jelly to be OK.

Thank you again for the advice. My husband is not into gardens but is a great help with the heavy work. He loves that nasty bush so just to be fair the quince will bloom this year and many more.One other question is there a way to cut back orivet so it fills in on the bottom? The ones here are all top heavy with sticks holding them up.

Do you mean privet? I don't know if all species behave the same, but the one I had at my old house would resprout from the base if you cut it down all the way (I was trying to get rid of it because I didn't like it, but I didn't want to go to the effort of digging it out so I just cut it back to the ground, but it resprouted nicely!) You can always try cutting back a few branches and see what happens--with some shrubs it's better to do the cutting back gradually rather than all at once and that way you'll also be able to see for sure whether it'll give you new growth or not without ruining the entire shrub.