With a philadelphus that is maintenance pruning. Rejuvenation (renewal) would be cutting all the stems down at once. Either could be done with the examples shown and they would look better after there was more replacement growth and less old woody material.

Let's not get caught up in semantics!! The 1/3 removal is also considered rejuvenation or renewal pruning but just not as severe an approach and allows spring flowerirng shrubs - like philadelphus - to retain some bloom for that season.

Either way works perfectly well.

Thank you so much!

agree with the recommendations here. See this link for details.. pruning.

if you wish to have blooms next spring, don't prune now because this plant will bloom on old wood. If you wish to revitalize the plant, hardprune in winter or early spring, when the plant is dormant but you will sacrifice next year's blooms. Personally I prefer hardpruning in early spring because removing the protective branches and twigs can risk the plant to the thaws and freezes of winter can kill plants.

or you can do selective branch pruning so you can still enjoy blooms next season.

Thank you! I will wait until early spring, but it looks like it has been neglected for a while, i will try to revitalize it.

I would suggest pruning out some of the interior branches to open up the plant - especially the larger one of the right. And get rid of any obviously dead branches in the interior as I’m sure there will be some.

Last week and this week I am posting some articles on pruning on my blog if you’d like more info.

Something you could be getting on with right now is removing the seedling maples growing at the base of the larger shrub. Don’t just cut them off. Try to pull/dig them right out.

Pliers/vice grips will make the job of pulling those seedling maples much easier. Grab them at the base and pull up. That way you are not disturbing the ground and having to dig in the roots of the Mock orange.

being that the lady is in a zone 5 area (my area as well), we are subjected to harsh winter conditions and a lot of snow. Generally those interior dead twigs and branches act to insulate the base when snow comes along. In this area its the huge temperature swings that can kill off plants so the dead branches and snow will act to insulate the plant against thaws and freezes. I made a mistake many years before by cutting off too many dead branches off a shrub and that exposed my plant and it died. So based on my experience, I say leave the branches be until next spring.