Abelias & Spireas, Cont...
Sometimes such a cut stem dies in the shade, becoming deadwood
for you to remove in coming years. Altogether, this system
of reducing shrub size is called the grab-and-snip method. 
Unfortunately, even with proper pruning on an abelia or spirea there are
likely to be "moonshots" the next year, though certainly not as many
as with shearing. Abelias, especially, just seem to increase in size
this way.
A common scenario is for the homeowner to bring an abelia home from the
nursery that has a nice curved/arching branch structure. It is
planted. Next spring it sends up these wild, stretched-out
over-achievers (the result of too much osmocote? or because of the training
cuts?) that ruin its good looks. The unsuspecting novice cuts them off,
only to find a greater upsurge of shoots occur as a result. Help!
SO, HOW DO YOU GET RID OF THOSE LONG SHOOTS? Well, you wait, maybe a
couple of years. Eventually the plant sorts itself out. The
only abelias I know that don't have any of those long, upshots are one's
that nobody's been trying to keep small. One, in particular, that I
have finally tamed with some judicious thinning and waiting, is currently
seven feet tall. It looks great all the time and now needs very
little pruning. You could never convince me to try to shorten it.
I'm not looking for trouble. There you see, I am telling people things
they don't want to hear again. Cassandra, my namesake, was the woman
who said, "beware of Greeks bearing gifts." Her gift from the god,
Apollo, was to be able to see the future. Her curse, (she still
wouldn't sleep with him), was to never be believed. As you will
recall from your mythology class, the Trojans scoffed at her and then
proceeded to wheel the Trojan horse (full of Greek soldiers) into
their fortress.
>>more...
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