Hi,

I live in Zone 7 and have 12 "Natchez" crape myrtles. After
hurricane Isabel last year I decided to seriously cut them back
because during the hurricane the branches hit my windows and ripped
some of the screens. I had read several articles indicating that
pruning them was your first step to Hell :-) so I had not pruned them
since 1997 when I planted them. Before I cut them they were about 25
feet tall and I remove about 10 feet off each of them in Jan/Feb.
They looked really sad when the first spring growth appeared, but they
quickly grew so that no one would notice the "haircut". The blooms
this year have been more profuse than any year since I planted them so
I am inclined to believe the pruning did no lasting damage and
probably encouraged the heavy bloom.

BTW, A couple of the trees are shading by my house and my
neighbors house and their leaves do get bigger in an attempt to reach
more light. They are about the size of an adult's hand, whereas the
leaves in full sun tend to be smaller.

Happy pruning.

Mark
On Wed, 15 Sep 2004 12:14:49 GMT, Frogleg wrote:

On Mon, 13 Sep 2004 23:23:21 -0400, "orangetrader"
wrote:

I think what I have is a Crape Myrtle Nanchez. The nusery where I bought
them from had a few that are 50' tall and they are definitely of the tree
variety. The one I have is about 20' tall and the main trunk is about 12
inches in diameter.

I don't think I want to cut them back to the ground. I did a search and
some recommend cutting them back and some said this is "crape murder".
Opinions seem to vary. I am very confused now.

"Crape murder," as discussed here within the past few weeks refers to
topping or pollarding, not regular pruning for shape, health, or
damage removal.

While the Natchez variety (white blooms?) is often referred to as a
tree because of its possible mature height, it's not distinct from
other crape myrtles which can be shrubs or trees, depending on climate
and/or pruning.

I am puzzled by your leaf description. Most crape myrtle leaves are
small -- 1" to 3" long. Are you sure this is a crape myrtle? I do seem
to recall a long-ago post about a Florida tree that was famously messy
for dropping leaves. Perhaps some variety unique to the area?

At any rate, you can probably find specific information by searching
on

"crape myrtle" pruning

My experience is with mid-Atlantic trees/bushes which have been
extremely tolerant of pruning from lopping off dangling branch ends to
sawing a 3" limb to keep a cat from climbing on the porch roof.