Pruning ligustrum

Question

I live in NE Florida. We experience hurricane Matthew in October, my garden was flooded with salt water for over an hour. This followed by very little rain over the past 6-7 months. I watered as best I could but was away from March 1-May 20.
My glossy ligustrum of 15-18 feet seems stressed with a few smaller interior branches dead or few leaves. The overall look doesn’t look healthy.
I would like to give it a semi-severe pruning to the point where I cut all the leading branches back removing all the leaves. Is this advisable considering the heat, lack of rain and it’s the beginning of June. It’s my understanding ligustrum can be truly severely pruned – that is not my intention but there will be no leaves left.
Please help. Maybe I missed the early spring window of opportunity.
Thank you, Isabella

Answer 1

First, your gardens are beautiful!

A rejuvenation prune will take a lot of courage, I’m not sue I could do it myself!

I would start with just removing the dead and damaged branches and make a plan for next spring’s prune.

These links will help you.
Ligustrum responds beautifully to a full rejuvenation pruning…take them down to no more than 6 inch stubs in the late winter/very early spring. Do not fertilize your shrubs the first year.
Pruning 1/3 at a time is another option.

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/shrubs/ligustrum/growing-ligustrum-shrubs.htm