Pruning Kousa Dogwoods

[InBetweenDays]

treedimensional, thought you may be able to answer this. We have 4 Kousa Dogwoods as street trees in front of our house. We bought in 2007 and they were there so I'm not sure how old they are, but they don't seem like they are doing terribly well. The leaves in the summer look very brown and curly and they are rather scraggly with some really long branches. I'd love to have them pruned into a more rounded "tree like" shape if they could handle that.

I have a picture of two of them below (there is a pear tree in the yard behind the left dogwood which make the tree look more full than it is). You can also see how the leaves are sort of brown and curled. Someone told me this is normal for Kousas in our climate? We're in Seattle and, contrary to popular belief, get virtually no rain in the summer.

[treedimensional]

There's a saying: Kousas get crispy, just add summer.
Those look sad. They should've been structurally pruned many years ago to prevent the unfortunate shape they're in now.
Structural pruning is difficult on small ornamentals like this, but it can be done. The objective is to develop one dominant central leader (trunk) and evenly spaced scaffold branches, as low and as horizontal as practicable.
You can learn more about structural pruning on the UF website:
hort.ifas.ufl.edu/woody/structural-pruning-flash.shtml
Or you can holler again and I'll answer specific questions.

[InBetweenDays]

Yeah, we should have dealt with these when we first moved in (didn't move in until 2009 after a long remodel). We did have someone come out last year to prune our pear tree and these, but they obviously didn't do a "structural" pruning. I don't think this is something we'll try to do on our own - should we wait until winter to bring someone out?

[treedimensional]

According to VA Tech, dogwood can be pruned in June / July, but it doesn't specify what species of dogwood.
Generally speaking, deciduous trees can be pruned in dormancy. If you are not concerned about flowers, you can prune them at other times (I prune constantly).

Sometimes, trees may reach a point where they really can't be structurally pruned successfully, because they're shape is too far gone.