By Mike Isbell
University of Georgia
Some people call it pruning. Others call it “crape murder.”
I know you’ve seen them — crape myrtle trees with their tops
whacked off. Amputated — now that’s the way to describe it.
It’s not limited to just crape myrtles, either. You’ll see it on
pecan trees in people’s yards and on street trees in town, where
it’s called “topping.”
Trees should never be topped. It destroys the branching control
and the natural shape of the tree. Topping trees makes them ugly.
It can lead to structural problems in the tree, too.
Many years ago, my father became concerned about the huge pecan
trees towering over the home place and wanted them topped. I did
a little research and found there was a much better way to prune
the trees and to lower their height without topping them.
Trees with crew cuts
The only problem was that the guy who showed up to do the job
only knew to cut the tops out, even though I carefully explained
to him what I wanted him to do. The result was five huge pecan
trees with crew cuts. And bad ones at that.
Now, back to the crape myrtles.
Crape myrtles need pruning. If you do it right, your pruning will
hardly be noticed. You certainly can’t say that if you just cut
the tops out of them.
I have a friend who, for years, would cut out the top of the
crape myrtle near his walkway. Since a crape myrtle produces
flower buds on new growth, it flowers best if it’s pruned each
year. My friend’s tree flowered profusely each year, but the way
it was pruned made it look like a big ball on a stick.
This year he cut it down.
Pruning crape myrtles
The kind and amount of pruning you should do each year depends
entirely on the plant shape and size desired. But you don’t have
to make them look like big sticks growing out of the ground.
On large, old crape myrtles, heavy pruning may not be needed,
since the tree shape itself is the desirable feature.
If your tree is growing too tall, then you planted the wrong one.
Replace it with a smaller-growing tree — there are many to
choose from. Then you won’t have to prune it to keep it small.
Pruning a tree to reduce the height is going to be a maintenance
battle.
And you’ll never win.
