Are you guilty of committing “Crepe Murder”?
As fall nears, bored gardeners with saws and loppers emerge from their garages to commit “crepe murder.” They chop their beautiful crepe myrtles down to sad ugly stumps — often times ruining them forever. Chances are you’ve seen these eyesores in your neighborhood — and maybe you’re guilty of committing this act of gardening violence.
Don’t stress. This is a no judgement zone. We learn so we can do better. In this article, you will learn how to properly prune your crepe myrtles and when it is even necessary.
Why Prune a Crepe Myrtle?
The goal for pruning a crepe myrtle is to:
Maintain its natural sculptural form
Produce strong branches that hold flowers upright
Open up its center to reveal the smotoh, multi-toned bark that forms on mature trunks and branches.
Cutting back your crepe myrtle to thick stubs each year makes achieving these goals impossible. Instead of having a strong majestic tree, you have a beheaded trunk with a Medusa-like tangle of spindly twigs too weak to hold up their flowers.
Before cutting, anything, take time to study your plant. Get an idea of what you want to accomplish and then cut very conservatively. You can always come back and take off more but you can’t put anything back. Generally the objective is to maintain well-spaced main trunks with beautiful bark and thin out the center to permit sunlight and airflow. If a bird can easily fly through the center of your crepe myrtle then the branch spacing is correct.
Essential Pruning Tools
A hand pruner to clip twigs and branches les than 1/2-inch thick
Loppers to but branches a 1/2 inch to 1 1/2 inches thick
Pole saw which you can use to cut branches more than 1 1/2 inches thick
When to Prune a Crepe Myrtle?
The best time to prune a crepe myrtle is late winter because it’s leafless, making it easier to see all the branches. Pruning too early in the fall can reduce blooms in the spring, since they bloom on new growth that sprouted at the wrong time of year. February is the ideal month to tackle the task. If you miss the winter pruning, you can still trim your crepe myrtle in early spring without too much impact on summer flowering. Pruning in late spring can delay blooming. You do not have to prune your crepe myrtle every year. Just keep an eye out for suckers or crossing branches, which can have a long term impact on the structure of your tree.
An excellent visual from Southern Living.
The Proper Way to Prune a Crepe Myrtle
Proper pruning can help the health of your crepe myrtle, while poor pruning can do the opposite. Trying to reduce a crepe myrtle’s height by lopping off the top creates an ugly stump and prevents the formation of pretty bark on mature trunks. Poor pruning also creates a mound of skinny, floppy shoots that sprout from the ugly stumps. These skinny shoots are not strong enough to hold up the flowers, so the branches flop over to the ground.
To avoid over pruning, always start conservatively and tackle branches in the order below.
First, reduce the number of trunks if necessary. Crepe myrtles are naturally multi-trunk trees, but you can limit the number of trunks to tame its spread and help its form. Limit your trunks to between 3-7. Always stick with odd numbers to create a natural look. Even numbers can often look more man-made. When removing trunks, always cut as close to the soil as possible - don’t leave stumps. Also if you notice trunks rubbing together remove one. When two trunks rub together sores can form that can introduce disease.
Next, tackle the branches. To ensure your crepe myrtle looks more tree than bush, remove branches extending from the trunk below the 5 foot mark. On larger trees you may want that line to start even higher. Always step back and study before you lop things off though.
Lastly, move on to the upper branches growing inwards toward the tree’s center. Remember to cut all crossing, rubbing, and dead branches. Always cut back to the branch collar (a swollen area where the branch joins to the trunk) or to another branch. Never leave lone or clustered stubs.
A note on seed pods: you can cut off old seed pods but it isn’t necessary. Leaving the seed pods will not effect bloom next year but they can get heavy weighing down the branches. If you remove the seed pods in July, you’ll probably get a second bloom in September
So you’ve committed Crepe Murder? What now?
If you have beheaded your crepe myrtle to within a few feet off the ground, there’s only one solution. You have to cut the plant completely to the ground. It will grow back very quickly. The next winter, select three to five well-spaced trunks, and cut off any others at ground level. If you continue to follow the above steps to prune your crepe myrtle you’ll have a beautiful tree within five years.
Maybe you only rounded off, or “hat racked” your crepe myrtle, cutting back all of its main branches to about the same height. In this case, follow our four-step process to get beautiful plants.
Examine the tops of the stumps you have left. If there are knuckled knobs, cut them off.
Within weeks, branches of thin shoots will grow from the cut ends of the stumps. Prune off all but a couple that you will let grow.
Keep doing this every spring for the next three years. Don’t let any new shoots grow from the ends of the stumps next to the ones you saved.
Train the saved shoots to grow up and out. Remove any side branches that grow from them towards the center of the tree. The saved shoots will become the main trunks.
Eventually, your crepe myrtle will look beautiful again. Let this be the end of the crepe murder crime spree.
