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i have a tree of some sort growning up the middle of my crape myrtle. my husband and i just bought this house the summer before last and i really don't know how to take care of this issue. it is so twisted in there, i can't get to it to cut it down. i cut it back as much as i could this year and last, but it just ruins the clean apperance that i would like to have with it. also, i think that my husband and i pruned it way too much it was ALOT taller before we started wacking at it. some sights say to prune and some say its crape murder. so which is it?
jessnjus, I am of the 'crapemurder' faction. Your crape should be pruned so that you can see through it not over it. Crapemyrtles are notorious for putting up water sprouts from the base. Yours has not had these removed and thus you have a 'forest' in the one tree. The classic tree has from one (a true tree form) to 3 or 5 trunks. I would, over a period of years, remove the excess trunks, keep the suckers cut out and strive for a more asthetic look. Prune to remove damaged or crossing branches from within the canopy and allow the tree to 'open up'. HTH Gene
I, too, would call that crapemurder. Pruning that way makes the tree push out an overabundance thin, weak growth that pronounces the unnatural look of the hacked back limbs. There's nothing less natural looking than a 1 cm wide stem coming out of a 3 inch thick branch. Unfortunately the look is not only ugly it is not healthy for the plant. The new growth of a crapemurdered tree tends to be very prone to powdery mildew and storm damage.
So how did this practice begin in the first place if it's such a bad thing? In the colder states, crapemyrtles die back quite a bit during winter and they have to be cut way back just to remove the dead parts of the branches. As northerns began moving south they brought the practice with them and over time, people adopted it as the proper way to prune. But, in warmer regions the only pruning that is necessary is just enough to remove last years seed pods, any dead branch tips and crossing limbs.
As for the Euonymus at the base of the tree (pardon me if someone has already suggested this) I would "paint" the leaves of it with Roundup or a similar herbicide. The leaves will draw the chemical into the roots of the Euonymus and kill it without affecting the crapemyrtle.
I'm of the opinion that builders should never use crape/crepe myrtles as foundation plants but they continue to do so in our area. I believe that crape myrtles should be planted out away from a house where they will have plenty of room to grow and get as tall as they like. All you would have to do is keep the excess trunks removed as suggested above. In the past--at another house--my hubby and I have resorted to putting a chain around the crape myrtles which were planted up against the house and pulling them out with a tractor. We waited too long to do this to one of them and had to leave it for fear we would damage the foundation of the house because the roots were so large. At our present house, we have removed two crape myrtles from foundation beds and moved them out into the yard. We still have one crape myrtle in one of the beds but we may cut it down at the end of the growing season this fall. It is getting too big for our liking, as you can see from the photo. In addition to the crape myrtle, you can see the other plants which were in the flower bed when we bought the house--except for the purple sage.. We have removed 3 loropetalums from this same bed and put them elsewhere. You can imagine how crowded the bed would be if we had left them. We also need to move the two bushes against the brick which have pink blooms(can't think of the name of those right now). All the shrubs have grown considerably in the 18 mos. we have lived here and they are crowding one another.
Good luck, whatever you decide to do, jessnjus!
jessnjus,I would think that it will now start sprouting from the bottom. You could then cut the tall portions way back and let the new sprouts take over and keep them trimmed back each year. --just a suggestion
I have just planted 4 Crep myrtles in my yard. Three are far out in the yard, one is fairly close. Should I move this one ? Is this going to be a problem in a year or two ? I have it outside my living room and upstairs bedroom window. I want it to shade these windows some day. Thanks for any heads up info !
How close is "fairly close" and how big is it going to get? There are dwarf crape myrtles that only get a few feet tall, all the way up to 20+ foot trees. I'm assuming it's one of the larger ones since you said you were hoping it would provide shade, so if you've got it right up against the house then you'll definitely need to move it. I'd look up how wide your particular cultivar typically gets, and then make sure you leave enough room between it and the house to allow it to grow to its full width without running into the house.
Ecrane, thanks so much for writing me back. I went out and measured the tree at 5ft away
from the wooden porch that is around the house. The porch is also 5ft wide, as is the up stairs balcony right above the tree.
So what do you think ? Is it going to be a problem ? The tree is 6ft 11" tall right now, and it has been in the ground about one week.
Thanks so much for your help. If I need to I will move it out farther, I do have room.
The stick that was in the pot said "Lagerstroemia, Natchez" I could not find any thing that said Natchez. To get any information on the future size of my tree.
Thanks again, : ) Always Smiling !
Here's the Plant Files entry for it [HYPERLINK@davesgarden.com] PF says it can get 15-20 ft tall and 10 ft wide, but Monrovia says on their website that it can get as much as 20 ft wide, and they grow it for a living so I'd tend to trust them over PF in this case [HYPERLINK@www.monrovia.com] So to be safe I'd probably move it another 7-8 ft or so out from the house, that way even if it does get 20 ft wide there'll still be a little room between it and the house.
The ultimate width of Natchez (or any crapemyrtle) is largely influenced by how many trunks it has and, if it has more than one trunk, at what angle the trunks emerge from the ground (the wider the angle the wider the crown). A single-trunk Natchez would probably grow only 10-15' wide. But I've seen some older, multi-trunk Natchezes that were closer to 20' wide. So, at 5' from the house you definitely could run into problems in the future.
However, if you'd like to keep it there, you could choose to prune it to your advantage. This would involve removing any branches that grow towards the porch and continuing to remove any new shoots that try to grow in that direction. The tree would have a somewhat lop-sided look from certain angles because it would be flattened looking towards the porch side and have a "normal" rounded look from the front side but you could just call that "character". I still think a lop-sided tree is better than having to crape-murder it in the future.
Or you could save yourself the trouble and go with the sensible Ms. ecrane's suggestion :)
