Rhododendron pruning.

Palustris

Do Rhododendrons re grow from brown wood? IE. If I cut back ours to a foot from the ground where there are leafless stems will they regrow from those stems?

Pete.8

I have one that was about 12ft high and 15ft round.
Last year I cut the whole thing back to the thick trunks leaving almost no branches or leaves.
New growth is sprouting all over now - so the answer is yes, you can

Palustris

Thank-you. Now the green bins are empty I can get cutting. No flowers this year so nothing to lose.

Pete.8

I filled 12 green bins with the prunings from mine
No flowers for me either this year, but at last the surrounding plants now have a chance to grow.

Palustris

Just done one of them. In all 60 years of gardening I have never seen as many insects on one plant before. Scale infestation off the scale. May have to remove the Rhodies altogether.

Pete.8

Once you've pruned just use a stiff brush on the scale insects to shift them. I used an old shoe brush when my acer had lots of them - worked a treat and they've not returned.
Rhodies are very tough plants and the scale insect larvae will find it hard to eek out an existence on it, so I wouldn't worry about them on such a robust plant.

Lyn

If you have a lot of scale insects paint methylated spirit on the trunks.  Cheap and effective. 

Palustris

We are talking here of 4 square metres of plants. It would take a gallon of meths!

Perki

Cut them to the ground / stump then to help get rid of the infestation they still bounce back fine.