Pruning Rose of Sharon

[outdoorsman0490]

I was at a customers house over the weekend and they asked me what to do with their front bed. They have two small spruces and a dearf Alberta in the middle about 5' tall, a scotch pine on one side about 20' tall, and a Rose of Sharon on the other side but growing over everything. The Rose of Sharon has a caliper of 6-8" and looks like it has never been pruned since planting, it has engulfed the two spruces and the dwarf Alberta.

The home owner would like to cut back the Rose of Sharon real hard, like Amal the way to 2-3" wood in order to get it back into the proportion it should have been if trimmed every year. My question is if it were cut back this hard, would it just die, or is it like forsythia and it will come back almost no matter what. Would it be better to trim in the early spring?
The other option for his bed is to trim the Rose of Sharon back several feet of growth and just take out the other smaller trees as they will still be over grown by the Rose of Sharon.

I should haven taken some pics, will see if the guy can send some over for me to post.
Thanks

 

[M.D. Vaden]

Actually, even plants like Forsythia, Lilac, etc., don't come back without consequence or decay if they are cut back equally severe. I see lots of shrubs eventually get decay.

If you whack it back, it will probably sprout back. Going to be a mess for sprouts though. If you have plenty of sun in summer, cutting back in summer will probably bring substantial sunburn to bark and tissue.