Ukga, I'd say you could prune these anytime you wanted, but if you do it now you may sacrifice some of your spring blooms. These bloom on and off for me all year, but the biggest flush is early spring.

My opinion is that they get much larger here than the tag on the plant might say when you purchase one...If you want them to remain small, it takes a lot of pruning...I have some that I've moved to better spots (to avoid all the pruning) and they're probably 15-20' tall and only 7-8 years old. They make a wonderful evergreen screen, but one drawback I've noticed is if we have ice, the branches are weak and they'll double over to the ground. They always perk back up as soon as the ice has melted. I guess my point is, that now is a good time to move things to better spots and these plants just weren't meant to stay small in our climate...

There are so many varieties out there that you have to be really careful of the kind you get. A lot of them get huge naturally. I'm not into pruning myself, Wildflower. People do it a lot around here but to me this plants' biggest asset is it's arching/drooping branches. So many "foundation" plants down here have no business being foundation plants in the first place. I have 2 loropetalums in front of the house that I just bought and I am pulling them up. They aren't very old but they are foundation plantings and from experience they look like they will be the big ones. I want to make sure that I have a small variety in there. 'Suzanne' only gets 3 to 4 foot tall. My problem is finding the plants I want locally. If you mail order them they are so tiny.

Georgia Belle, is there a drawf loropetalum out there now??? I didn't know about this!! I'll have to go look this up. I too love the big arching branches and natural growth. It would be nice to be able to fit a dwarf one into a perennial bed though..

Monrovia lists Susanne so maybe pike's carries it. I'm going to look for it myself.

Here is a link that might be useful: Loropetalum chinense 'Suzanne'

Thanks for the good advice. As soon as it stops raining and warms up a bit, I will move the lora...Will it do in part shade?

Don't cha just love it?? One of Monrovia's big wholesale nurseries is in a little town about 12 miles from where I live and it drives me nuts that I can't shop there. A teacher friend that works with my husband had two truckloads of plants brought in from over there to use at the prom. My hubby took me to see it and it was incredible!

There are two smaller loropetalums. One is Bill Wallace, which is a burgundy leaf/pink flower type. The few I've seen had some problems with branch die-back, but it may have been specific conditions where it was growing in pots. It's named after a Baptist missionary who lost his life in China. The other is Green Elf, a green leaf/white flower type. Green Elf may not yet be on the market.

Loropetalums do fine in light shade. In fact, I just moved two of mine last weekend to part shade. They're doing fine.

I googled Bill Wallace, and it looks like a dwarf variety.

I found two varieties, ruby and Fire Dance, that are some smaller - 4-5 feet. Have any of you heard of these two?

Well, I went by Pike's and a nice guy told me to go with Chang's Ruby (sp?). They look nice, but a little small for $20 each. I'm going to keep looking, but they be what I end up with.

They also limb up nicely to make lovely small evergreen flowering trees, if their positions would allow this.

Did anyone catch "Ground Breakers" on Saturday morning? I didn't have time to watch it, but heard a small clip where they mentioned they were going to use Bill Wallace as a groundcover to drape over a retaining wall....

Woody, please let us know if you find any of the dwarfs at a better price.