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| Brutally pruned Crapemyrtles with overgrowth |
About
Crape Myrtles
Crape
Myrtle, (Lagerstroemia indica) is
one of the most commonly-used flowering shrubs/trees in metro-Atlanta landscaping today.
A tall and graceful multi-trunked woody ornamental with beautiful giraffe-like exfoliating
bark, crape myrtle provides welcome flowers in late summer through fall. Bright colors include the original watermelon-pink
through white, light pink, magenta, lavender and carmine red.
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| Showing natural, graceful Crapemyrtle form |
There is a size and habit of crape myrtle for
every landscape situation that avoids all forms of pruning, although the
correct cultivar is not always selected at planting time. The United States National Arboretum lists varieties alphabetically in their Lagerstroemia Checklist.
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| Rosey Carpet Crapemyrtle |
Varying Crapemyrtle Habits
Sizes range from groundcover crape myrtles that drape on the ground like carpets to crape myrtlettes that grow only about 3 feet in large planters, to the typically sized 8-12 feet, to the giant white variety ‘Natchez’ which grows to 40 feet and is beloved for its beautiful patterned bark.
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| Grumpy Gardener Steve Bender's photo of Crape Murder |
What is “Crape Murder”?
Because
crape myrtles flower on new wood, unskilled maintenance crews will hack the tops
off of graceful shrubs to ensure they will send out new wood. This is
unnecessary!
CrabappleLandscapEXPERTS recommend leaving graceful plants unpruned. They will
reliably produce bountiful flowers next summer regardless!
In
the case of overgrown shrubs, your LandscapEXPERTS Team will carefully select by eye and hand-remove stump sprouts and crossing or rubbing internal limbs. We can slightly reduce the overall size of
the plant with expert, selective pruning with hand clippers. Small twigs less than pencil size can unobtrusively lower the height of a crapemyrtle.
Dead-Heading
Contact your Crabapple rep if you want us to remove
spent blossoms in late August to force a second flush of bloom in autumn!
Dead-Heading
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| Tuscarora Crapemyrtle flower |
Or,
if a small tree with a single trunk suits your requirements best, Crabapple can
select a strong main trunk and remove side branches (limb up) the woody
ornamental to form a tree-like canopy. No way will we practice the unskilled crape
murder that leads to unsightly knobs of wood and destroys the natural shape of
the tree.
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| Multi-colored exfoliating bark |
Steve Bender, a.k.a. the Grumpy Gardener from Southern Living announced his 3rd annual Crape Murder photo contest on FB on 1/1/13: http://www.facebook.com/SLGrumpyGardener
DYK? there is a FB Community called Stop Crape Murder:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stop-Crape-Murder/154367104600280?fref=ts
Digging Deeper about Crape Mytle Pruning with UGA:
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