This is a technique I saw Chris Beardshaw demonstrate on 'The Great Garden Challenge' a little while ago.
Rather than the usual 'regenerative' pruning ie removing the oldest flowered stems and no more than a third, he suggested you coppice the shrub directly after flowering. The idea being the new growth would mature and flower next spring.
After some initial scepticism, i decided to try it out - if all else fails it should regenerate the plant. once done it had the bonus of giving the aquilegias planted around the shrub and just coming into flower, centre stage rather than being lost amoungst the forsythia foliage. It should also keep the plant compact.
BUT the $64,000 question is will i get flowers next spring?
I would be curious to hear if anyone else has heard of this or indeed tried it out (what was the result?).
did this last year - more through ignorance than anything else and had hardly any flowers at all. Previous year did not prune at all (again ignorance) and had loads of flowers - just goes to show eh?
So this year very confused and have no idea when or how much to prune!
As a compromise you can take a third of the stems (the oldest looking ones) down to the ground, then tidy up the rest to shape. Then next year do the same with the next third oldest looking ones and so on year on year. You can do this with a lot of other deciduous shrubs that throw up lots of stems from ground level too, eg hydrangia, spirea, shrub fussia...This way you should be able to have the best of both worlds - rejuvinating and still getting flowers. :)
Rather a mixed response i gahther from replies. I posted the same message on the BBC forum and got a similar response. Some say it will flower, others not or not very much. Someone even said that after a poor show the year after pruning the next year could be really good.
I shall have to see what happens. I suppose it depends on a number of variables including variety (which i dont know) weather etc.
Thanks