Crape myrtles

Haha well I have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to flower beds so I guess we will see

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I hope no one comes in and tells you absolutely not to, because I just pruned mine this week.

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Although it best to wait when trees are dormant to do major pruning, its perfectly acceptable to do some selective pruning now if needed for any number of reasons. In fact, you can to prune spent blooms on crape myrtles to induce a second bloom later in the year as flowers bloom on new growth.

Just don’t practice crape murder. LINK

As far as I'm concerned, they should be called "annoying myrtles". I cut mine whenever I feel like it, and the thing is still growing like a weed. I think it's 70+ years old though

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Although it best to wait when trees are dormant to do major pruning, its perfectly acceptable to do some selective pruning now if needed for any number of reasons. In fact, you can to prune spent blooms on crape myrtles to induce a second bloom later in the year as flowers bloom on new growth.

Just don’t practice crape murder. LINK

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This is correct. I trim mine to keep how I like but I like the canopy. And yes never just saw them off.

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Crepe Murder? LOL! It's about impossible to kill these things!

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“Crepe Murder” is just a hyperbolic term coined by landscape professionals to refer to destroying the natural form of a crape myrtle by severely topping it, which is a practice going back as fat as crape myrtles have been grown. The technical term is “pollarding” a tree and pollarding certain type of trees is an accepted form of pruning on many types of trees or large shrub type trees, particularly in Europe.

Of course whether one chooses to severely pollard a crape myrtle for enhanced blooming but at the same time destroying the natural form of the tree is a matter of personal choice, I don’t pollard my own crape myrtles b/c I prefer the natural form look but I’ve got plenty neighbors who do pollard theirs annually. I selectively prune mine as needed, and removing spent crape myrtle blooms to get a second bloom later on in the summer/fall is not “crepe murder”.

Of course anyone who has experience owning crape myrtles knows they are dang near impossible to kill, even if you cut them to the ground. I removed 4 a decade ago and had the the stumps ground and they still sprout annually from parts of the old root system that weren’t removed

I have to rent a God damn boom lift to cut mine

That’s the herbicide Bama Harvey Updyke used to kill the big oaks at Toomers Corner in Auburn.