re: Please, for the sake of your neighbors and decent trees, don’t top your Crape Myrtle

We've got them ALL OVER the yard. Front and back. Come spring I'm ripping them out. Idk why the previous owner planted so damn many.

I've got one about 15 feet tall and is planted maybe 6 feet away from the house. It's the only tall plant near the front of the house now that I've cut down two river birch trees that were also right up against the house.

Should I worry about foundation issues with the crape myrtle?

The reason you do this is because after they bloom in the spring you can cut them and they will bloom again. So you can get 2 blooms in a year by cutting them.

If you aren’t going to cut them a 2nd time yearly, there’s no reason to do it at all I agree.

My next door neighbor has a 20 year old CM on our property line in the front yard. I consider it my CM because I'm the only one who ever keeps the branches trimmed out of my electrical and cable feeds to my house. It's really pretty in the summer. It's about 25 ft tall.

Others in the neighborhood commit Crape Murder but they still look great in the summer. If you don't want a gigantic tree in your front yard, they you have to keep them murdered back. I don't understand why this goads so many people.

SO, if the previous owner of my house, obviously performed crepe murder several times, what's the best was to tackle this monstrosity? It's way too fonking tall and you cant see out the window on the 2nd floor when it's got leaves.

Remove it.

Cut it down and spray the stump with brushtox

The house I moved into last year has a crape myrtle that had been cut back to the knuckle like pic #2.

To fix this as best as I can, should I cut off the knuckle this year and let it grow from a straight branch like pic #3, or should I leave the tree alone fat knuckles and all?

I heard Dan Gill blast a lady on wwl radio the other day for cutting a crape myrtle. She said well it’s by my house and I really don’t want it to be tall. He said something along the lines of “well why didn’t you plant and shrub? it’s a crepe myrtle tree. They are made to be trees not shrubs.” Then he said what I thought was was the best part of the call

“Quit trying to make it something it’s not and let it be what it is or remove it”

I guess the LSU Ag Center and the two PHD authors of the article on improper pruning of crape Myrtles don’t know their arse from a hole in the ground.

Pollarding was done for a variety of reasons few to do with a trees health. This was done for uses in live stock wood cuttings for fuel. It’s not to be confused with what people do to stunt their crapes every year.

If the arborists at lsu and the ag center don’t recommend it, nor does any arborist I’ve ever worked with or been instructed by in college, then it’s probably the wrong practice,