Prune with a purpose

My wife does most of our driving. It gives me a lot of time to look at landscapes, and that in turn gives me time to see what people are doing with their plants. These are a few recent out-the-window photos of things that have given me pause. I hope you find them useful.

A new worry about crape myrtles…
You can spend 25 years training plants to grow into beautiful forms, and then they can be harmed or ruined in just 20 minutes if they’re improperly pruned.

This has always been my favorite planting of Lipan crape myrtles. The top photo was taken 5 years ago. The plants were already at full, mature height and this is how they bloomed 3 times per summer. The bottom photo was taken 3 weeks ago. You can see the impact of removing so many lower branches. It’s unlikely that they will fill in again. Images clickable for larger views.

• Don’t strip the trees’ bases. Just as “topping” crape myrtles ruins their beauty, so does removing their side branches more than 40 to 45 percent of the way up the trunks.

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Lower branches provided privacy and visual separation of the neighborhood from the busy thoroughfare. Flowers that are produced are now 20-25 ft. off the ground.

• Crape myrtles exhibit “apical dominance.” That is, most of their new growth is at the tops of the plants. Once lower branches are removed, there will never be any new branches produced to fill in the bare trunks. If they’re already at full height, that’s essentially the way they will look forever.

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As we sat at the traffic light, I realized that for the first time in 25 years the entire upstairs is now visible. The traffic noise has probably also increased inside the house. And, once again, the flowers are so high they aren’t visible to passing traffic.

• Flowers will be at the tops of the plants. Since all crape myrtle flowers are produced on new growth, when lower branches are removed, blooms will only be at the tops of the plants – often too high to be enjoyed by people walking or driving by.

Posted by Neil Sperry
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