Prune in late winter, early spring.

no pix ... no reason not to start talking about it now ...

big city location might also help as to specific timing ...

ken

My state is R.I

It would probably help a lot if you would lable the main branches A, B etc so that we could see how the photos relate to each other.

You could also cut the whole thing down and let it start fresh!

looks like someone already pruned it at about 4 feet.. resulting in all its annual growth to trigger from last years cuts ...

it also look like its growing at about 3 to 4 feet per year ...

you should probably rejuvenate it.. by cutting it all down to about 6 inches or so ... and step back ... because that will trigger new branches that will probably grow to the annual 4 foot rate ...

and be proportional as you wish ... see if the links below might get get you where you want to go ...

you can not prune this at height .. as you already see the result

ken

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffnt&q=smokebush+rejuvenation+pruning&iax=videos&ia=videos

The Plant has never been pruned it grew sort of lopsided as shown in the picture. I was hoping just to prune it so it would grow more evenly. But I take it I cannot do that instead I should cut it down to 6 inches above the ground. Is this correct?

And late winter is best time for cutting it back to the ground? Which could be March in RI. I just want to get it right. The videos helped a lot.

You don't have to cut it to the ground, but you can. Alternatively, I count about a dozen branches sticking up you could just cut back to the same height. What variety is it and how big do you want it to be? Some people, or in colder zones the winter, cut them down annually. Or you can leave it be or do something in between. Smokebushes tend not to be the shapeliest things. If it's a large growing variety I would expect it go grown more than 4 feet tall after cutting it to the ground. Here, in MN where the cold kills them back most years, they can grow upwards of 6-8' tall once established.

Is that Aruncus dioicus hanging out behind the smoke bush, GardenHo?

So pennlake and everyone if I do cut just the dozen or so branches back that are high and leave the rest would I still get smoke blossoms on the branches that I do not cut??

Saturn

Indiana girl yes, And looking pretty rough after just moving it.

Frank most likely yes. Just keep in mind that every cut you make, a gangly branch will shoot straight up from it. Probably won’t look very pleasing to the eye...

So overall I think I would be better off to cut it down to about a foot in early spring to get the best result and forfit the smoke blooms

Or leave it as is which is a little unsightly I think and maintain the blooms.

Saturn

I would prefer to try to prune it as a tree for I have read as a shrub it can take over quickly. So would that mean cutting it to the ground to rejuvenate it. Do not want gangly branches

Saturn

What do you mean "can take over quickly."? It doesn't spread. It doesn't take over. Cutting to stubs gives a gorgeous flush of purple leaves and is the only way I'd ever have a purple smoke.

By stubs you mean almost to the ground 6" -12 " above ground. The picture to follow shows the base of the smokebush plant

IMO, this shrub rarely looks good trained as a tree....it goes against its natural growth habit. It does get to be a large, full shrub even with routine pruning/stooling so just allow adequately for the space it will fill. And I will also confirm that it does not spread or "take over".

You don't have to cut it back to 'stubs' if you do not wish to. Just pick a point somewhere along the structure that will provide a good framework for the new growth. I'd prune mine back annually to a point about 18-24" above the soil level and by the end of the season it would be somewhere around 6-8' tall and very full and quite dense. No 'smoke' (a feature I don't find particularly attractive anyway) but with very large and intensely colored leaves.

If you do a Google image search you will get a lot of pictures of the commonly offered varieties. Some show them bigger with 'smoke' and some that have been cut short and grown for foliage. I like the smoke on some varieties. Again there is really no right way or wrong way. If you want the bloom then try light pruning more to shape it. If after a couple years you don't like the way it looks cut it short and start over.

I would go by the advice of prunning to 18 - 24 inches. Others in this thread warned of gangly branches which I definitely want to stay away from. If cutting it back in late winter 18 -24 inches does will not create gangly branches I do like that idea.

Gangly branches are inevitable with Cotinus. People cut the stems back to get larger more intense coloured foliage, not to shorten them per se.. As GG said you’ll get stems 6 - 8ft tall in the year after you cut back to 24”. But that’s what people are pruning for.

This is what I found pruning as a shrub. You can also prune to shape as well as to the ground as everyone has been telling me.

The other option is to leave the smoktree unpruned and let it do what smoketrees do like these:

Taking Sam's point to an extreme.... The most impressive smoketree I've ever seen was at a hospital in Toronto. The pictures below were taken 10 years ago but I think it is still there. From what I can find, the buildings it is near were built /landscaped between the late 1950s and the early 1970s so that might give an idea of how old the smoketree in the pictures was.... So, if you plant one, it's not likely to get to this size in your tenure in a house, but if you buy a house with one already well established, it might be worth pruning it with the intent of seeing how big it might get!

woodyoak, is it possible that is a smoketree (Cotinus obovatus) rather than a smokebush (Cotinus coggygria)? An American native species arguably more cold tolerant than the Asian species and definitely much more tree-like in habit, as well as the potential for growing to twice the height.

gg48 - you’re probably right... I’ve see the bushes commonly called smoketrees but this one really was a tree! I took cuttings but they didn’t root - and I don’t really have a place to plant one but, whenever I see a smokebush, particularly a green one, the image that pops into my mind is the one in these pictures! I think they should be more widely planted, although they wouldn’t be very appropriate on many of the common small lots available these days.....

oooh gorgeous! I like them as standards. Is it a lot of maintenance to keep the smoke bush trained as a standard?

Since smokebush (Cotinus coggygria) is most often sold as a multi-stemmed shrub, you would need to get a very young one to train into a standard or tree form. Might be easier to just opt for the tree (Cotinus obovatus) to begin with :-)

This is the same smokebush during the summer