I would have thought that nothing short of a nuclear explosion would hurt a privet. Where are you, zone and state-wise?

it had nothing to do with your pruning ... your hair cut ...

just remove all dead stuff as low as you can ...

with no insult to the root mass ... it should take of like mad ..

i would figure winter damage ... but i dont know where you are ...

for the future pruning.. google REJUVENATION PRUNING OF FLOWERING SHRUBS .... perhaps find a video ...

has the mulch always been there??? .. what has changed in the circumstances in the last year or two.. new deck???? ... etc

ken

Me too, lol. Oops, I used to post on Garden Web, so I guess I need to update my profile here. I'm in Zone 5a. It wasn't a terribly bad winter either - no worse than usual anyway.

Hey Ken, this is Snail Lover from Gardenweb (from Michigan). I don't know how I ended up with this name. I must've already had a Houzz account. The mulch was put in last summer. That's the only thing that changed. Would that do it?

It's me - the OP. I figured out how to get in with my Gardenweb profile. Okay, I'll just prune it back then. The same thing happened to my Butterfly Bush - leaves only on the bottom. I wasn't too surprised about that, but the privet was disappointing. This thing used to be up to the 2nd story (never pruned by prior owner).

in my z5 adrian MI .. we had two z4 winters in a row ...

i dont know how you escaped such ... even in the city.. it had to have been colder than usual ...

any chance.. its dead down to just about snow cover??? .. if so.. it was probably winter ...

butterfly bush was variable in livonia ... as to longevity ... and i downright could get them to winter over in adrian ...

mulch is not a problem.. unless you buried landscape fabric under it ...

ken

Need closer view. Is this really a privet? Probably winter kill whatever it is.

there is a yellow privet up here in MI ... incredibly fragrant .. i never learned the name of it ... its probably the invasive one.. lol .. but with our winters.. i have never seen seedlings ...

ken

Ken - thinking back, there was a cold snap where it was around -15 for a few weeks. And yeah, snow cover would've been about 2 feet, so that would make sense. There was weed fabric, but I ripped it out the year before. The earth was parched underneath and all the shrubs were struggling. A viburnum was near death and I saved it from the brink. Evil stuff.

Dave - Here's a closeup.

yep.. with no insult to the root mass .. it ought to explode in growth ...

dead is dead.. remove all dead stuff as low as you can get ...

ken

I would say it suffered from the dryness at some stage. But like everyone says, it will take off. Just wants all that dead stuff cut away.

Glad there is another snail lover in the world.

Dead stuff removed. I think it's grown 6 inches since I posted this!

of course the growth is not related to removing dead ... but probably to the 4 to 6 inches of rain we got in MI in the last week ...

stand aside .. it might knock you down.. lol ...

ken