Pity the Poor Crape Myrtle
I am appalled at the way homeowners are pruning their crape myrtles. I can only explain it as Monkey See Monkey Do. Just because you see somebody else — even landscape maintenance companies — cutting crape myrtle like dock pilings, it does not mean that they know what they are doing.
Those of you who travel Rt. 260 see the massacre of crape myrtles growing in the median strip as you approach Chesapeake Beach. The same dumb pruning method is being used on the crape myrtle growing along the boardwalk at North Beach. The workers who are doing this hacking must be the same individuals who are piling mountains of mulch around the base of the plants.
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I call it the butchering of a beautiful summer-flowering species. Dr. Don Egolf — the plant breeder formerly with the National Arboretum and responsible for introducing all those new varieties with Native American names — must be rolling in his grave.
Crape myrtles are one of the few trees that provide our landscape with color from July through September. They are available in multiple sizes and colors. If you select the proper variety to fit the location, once the plant has attained its mature size and shape, it does not have to be pruned except for the removal of dead branches and branches that interfere with maintenance. There are crape myrtles in southern Maryland that have not been pruned for decades and produce an abundance of flowers each summer.
If a crape myrtle is too large, remove it and replace it with a smaller growing variety. If your intent is to grow crape myrtle as a shrub, select one of the dwarf varieties. Prune its stems near to the ground and allow new stems to arise from the stumps. When using this method of pruning, you will have to prune out the taller stems each year so as to promote branching near the ground.
Those who butcher crape myrtle should be boiled in oil, tarred and feathered, drawn and quartered and dragged out of town using a 20-ton chain behind an 18-wheeler driving down a dirt road.