Philadelphus how hard to cut back

[Telemichus]

I have a huge and neglected philadelphus (it was like that when I moved in)
It’s probably pushing 25ft tall I will try to attach some photos.

last year I cut some side branches back hard because they were in the way & they do seem to have put out growth this year.
should I risk it & basically chop the whole thing do you think? And then how do I keep it growing in a sensible shape?
or should I leave it some of the woody stuff? The branches are mostly 2-3 inches thick with 1-2 inch off shoots, all woody.

I can’t get up high enough to just cut off the non woody bits.

I realise I won’t get flowers next year, I’ll survive :)

any other shrubs you might recommend? I would quite like is it buddliea that attracts butterflies?

Photos

I’ve had 3 Philadelphias in my life. One I got at a garden centre and had it for 25 years, chopping off the flowered stems straight after its flowered like you’re supposed to do. After a while it got woody and I wished I didn’t chop it back every single year ! Then I moved house. The second one is new from a garden centre, and before it had much chance to take off, my partner fell off a ladder ( he was fine) and broke it a lot, but it’s now looking fine and shooting well. The third one is doing fine too.

so I would chop yours as far down as you can reach. See if it sprouts from the wood at the bottom, it probably won’t, but it will rejuvenate it. Ideally you should wait until the flowers are over before chopping it, but I chopped a weigelia in November (supposed to do it in June) once in the ice and it helped it the next year.

should I risk it & basically chop the whole thing do you think? No! Spread it over 3 years. Cut a third of the stems at the base, repeat in year 2 and 3. Best to do major pruning in the dormant period but Philadelphus is tough.

After that, prune to shape each year after flowering.

Yes, Buddleia davidii is known as “butterfly bush”, but mainly the pale purple, not he dark purple cultivars.

I trimmed everything I could reach back to a bud the year before last. Last year I cut out a few stems near the bottom. Less than 1/3 IIRC. I focused mostly on stems that crossed others higher up and crowded the shrub. This year it has flowered gloriously, and seems leafier, too. The tallest parts, which I left untouched, also seemed to flower better.

Deutzia has lovely flowers, and is absolutely adored by bees. Only a shame mine has no fragrance. It flowers on last year's stems. So if you want to keep it in shape, give it an all-over trim after it has flowered. It is very easy to take care of.

Brill thanks for the tips. It casts a lot of shade over my neighbours’ garden and just looks a bit tatty, so I’m keen to get the height down. All the flowers are over, so I should be okay from that pov.
lastvyear I missed it as I thought you had to wait until the green was gone.
i’ll get the ladder out & see how it goes. And I might just buy another at some point, I do like them.

I agree with @MereDintofPandiculation that the best way to renovate overgrown shrubs is to do it gradually over three years. Reduce a third of the oldest branches each year. It's what the RHS recommend.

If you chop the whole lot at once, the shrub might respond by putting on a huge amount of tall leafy growth really quickly, which is not what you want.

ive probably cut a bit much, but there’s still so much left! It’s incredibly tangled, I’m not really sure I’ve improved it, but I’m going to leave it alone for now. Maybe I’ll get one for the front garden, can you keep them small?

I cut ours back to ground this winter as while it is stunning, it was in the way for building work, very woody etc. It's not flowered this year but has regrown well.

There are smaller cultivars etc but with shrubs, maintenance of size via pruning is key

There are different varieties. I have one which is about 5m (I rather like the cascade of flowers way above me), and I have another which has hardly been pruned in the last 30 years, and is still less than 1m.

Philadelphus 'Manteau d'Hermine' is one such cultivar