Lagerstroemia, commonly known as crape or crepe myrtle, is a genus of around 50 species of deciduous and evergreen trees and shrubs native to the Indian subcontinent, southeast Asia, northern Australia, and parts of Oceania. It is cultivated in warmer climates around the world. It is very popular here in the southeastern USA in growing zones 6 or 7 to 10.
Crape Myrtles (crape or crepe are both correct spellings) are trees, and they grow from 20 – 40’ in height. They have been lovingly referred to as the Lilac of the South (with no fragrance) with a very long bloom time in the summer.
Crape myrtles have wonderful exfoliating bark in late spring/early summer to reveal a beautiful, velvety, cinnamon colored trunk.
The leaves also provide great fall color from yellow to orange to red if the weather cooperates.
Last Thursday I shared the next door neighbor’s large white crape myrtle tree’s blooms. Most people had never seen such a large crape myrtle tree. One reader made a comment about “crepe murder” of extreme pruning. Today I want to talk about the unwise habit of cutting off the tops of trees each late winter. When allowed to grow naturally, crapes have a beautiful sculptured trunk. There are some single trunk varieties and multi-trunk varieties. If you want a single trunk tree, buy one. Don’t keep hacking at the multi-trunk tree trying it to force it to one trunk. It takes a long time to achieve. For the majority of crapes, choose 4 main trunks when young and remove suckers that grow.
Crape myrtles flower from new growth. Therefore, some people think you have to prune each year to force more flowers. Like most trees, crepe myrtles require just a little pruning for shaping.
Ruthlessly cutting the tree and removing the entire canopy does not allow the tree to gracefully mature. Instead, it becomes gnarled and knotted with spindly, wispy branches, which resemble Medusa and are incapable of holding flowers upright. If your crape is too big for your yard, you can transplant it to a larger area. Research before buying and planting a new tree for normal height and width. At my old house there was a large pink crepe myrtle in the backyard. It never had a normal shape due to excessive pruning by the previous owner. Also, it was planted in the wrong space with taller trees reducing the sunlight. Crapes love lots of sun and heat (at least 6 hours a day). It was next to a concrete slab and a shed. The area was way too small and the trunks were growing into the concrete.
If you want a smaller tree or a bush, there are crape varieties that were developed for those uses. The tree below is a Catawba deep purple hybrid that reaches 18′ when mature.
Crepemyrtle.com has 16 varieties of dwarf crepe myrtles which grow to mature height of 8 to 10′. Southern LIving has an informative post, Dwarf and Semi-Dwarf Crepe Mytles We Love. CrepeMyrtleGuy has dwarf and semi-dwarf crapes available. Semi-dwarfs mature to 5 to 10′ feet.
For more information on excessive pruning crape myrtles:
I. Crepe Myrtle Murder is the South’s Worse Gardening Crime, Steve Bender, Southern Living
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II. Don’t Commit Crape Murder! Here’s How To Trim a Crape Myrtle Tree the Right Way, City of Tampa
III. Don’t murder your crepe myrtles this year, John Greene, Beaumont Enterprises
I’ll close with a few more beautiful photos of crape myrtle blossoms against the sky.
For fun, the link below is for an amazing living fossil crape myrtle, China’s Flora Tour: The world’s tallest crape myrtle in Guizhou. “Each April, villagers around Ziwei Township in southwest China’s Guizhou Province will gather for a special worship ceremony. The object of their worship is a 1,380-year-old crape myrtle tree. The tree with a height of 34 meters and a girth of 1.9 meters is the tallest and largest crape myrtle species in the world, hailed as the Lord Crape Myrtle. As a survivor of the Tertiary Period, the tree is considered as a living fossil and is currently under the state protection. If one happens to touch its smooth bark, one will notice the tree tremble. Thus, people often call it the tickle tree.”
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They are gorgeous! Saw a purpleish one this morning on our walk…but not as beautiful as the one in your post.
Some people just cannot seem to help but murder their crepe myrtles and you are right the result is not pretty!!
such a beautiful tree.
I agree, they are indeed gorgeous. And we should respect more!
Beautiful flowers.
Lovely myrtle photos ~
Wishing you good health, laughter and love in your days,
clm ~ A ShutterBug Explores,
aka (A Creative Harbor)
Crepe myrtles are not hardy in our climate but I remember them from living in the South for several years. I miss them. I love their flowers and their bark although I don’t love the heat they love. Because of living in the South I have seen the results of crepe murder. It’s unnecessary and heartbreaking. I haven’t seen one bloom in person in perhaps seven years. I loved each and every one of your pictures. Alana ramblinwitham
They really are beautiful trees. Sounds like less is more when it comes to pruning!
I loved crepe myrtles when we lived in Texas. Their blooms are so rich and glorious! This is an excellent article on how to properly care for them! Blessings to you Carol! Enjoy their blooms – we have the lilacs here, and sadly their blooms only last a few weeks with such incredible fragrance. I wish they lasted all summer like the crepe myrtles!!!
I will enjoy my Crapes and envy your lilacs. I can still smell them from a visit to my sister in Michigan a decade ago.
We have a lot of Crape Myrtles in our area of Pennsylvania. I’ve always wanted one, but they do get quite big and I have no where to plant one. The purple photo that looks like lilacs is spectacular.
check out the shrub size ones in the post.
What an amazing tree. Again, I wish we could grow them in Wisconsin. I love the bark.
There is a difference between murder and trimming the crepe. I’ve had them in my yard most of my southern life. I have run experiments that if I didn’t trim them, they didn’t bloom much. If I do trim them after February 15th which is a month before the last frost date of zone 9 and is what is suggested as the time to trim your crepes, they bloom profusely. I have dwarf versions which have grown to over 15 feet high every year. Plants do that in Florida. I will also trim off most of the dead seed heads after they bloom in the middle of the summer to get another bloom. The larger version trees are basically impossible to do anything with. Personally, I would never plant the large tree versions and haven’t really seen any for sale in my area.
They are pretty trees. They’re not native to the US, so when I saw the title, I thought maybe you were protesting that people are trying to get rid of them. I did see an article that said not to plant them because they’re not native. However, birds do like to eat their seeds, so I’m not gonna murder them.
Great article on the Crepe Myrtle I learned a lot today. Thank you Carol!
Such a useful post! Thank you. We planted a white crepe myrtle in our front garden in memory of our son two summers ago. It has not yet flowered but looks happy enough. My husband always wants to cut it back, to achieve one trunk. I will show him your post.
You can trim the tree for shape and cut off seed pods. Most trees are beautiful with 4 or 5 trunks.