Susan, I am sure they were giving you bad advice at the nursery. The male shrub I have is no bigger than the female. So RED SPRITE gets JIM DANDY pollinator. There is another very well know male polinator called SOUTHERN GENTLEMAN and that one gets 10-12 feet because it is the polinator for WINTER RED winterberries. Those are big shrubs get 10-12 feet. Stay away from all of them if you have a small yard. PLus they don't even bloom at the same time so SOUTHERN GENTLEMAN will NOT polinate RED SPRITE. There are lots of winterberries and they have diffent bloom times (early, mid or late) and you must have both male and femal blooming at the same time. There are other males besides these two, just as there are other females. But I don't know bloom times on them as I only have RED SPRITE. You just can't go wrong here with these that grow to about 5 feet high.
You don't need to put him anywhere near the girls, anywhere in the yard will do. Put the girls front and center to enjoy those lovely berries and stick the male off where you don't much look. Mine is about 50 feet away from the little grove of females. You can prune them lightly and really don't need to prune Red Sprite at all.
