Best care for crepe myrtle?

Question

hub & i disagree bout keeping myrtle trees trimmed shaped he says they're not suppose to be trimmed at all! doesn't make since to me?

Answer 1

a crepe myrtle that is intended to be a tree will outgrow any attempt at pruning it.... my 18 ft Natchez is one.... crepes that are standard size shrubs get ten or twelve ft and can be pruned to shape.... but let's not be talking about what's termed 'crepe murder' where the branches are all removed from the trunk so that the new growth next year is all the same size and spindly.... that is NOT accepted by anyone who loves crepes these days... it's a habit of lazy groundskeepers  and not good for the plants at all.....

smaller dwarf types of crepes do good with a shaping and the miniatures really do NEED to be cut back in fall.....

there are some lovely old crepes around here that have never been pruned or at least not in the last thirty or so years, and they're magnificent!.... it's all in what you want them to do and what they are able to do..... like you can't keep a tree sized one down at six feet!.... and nothing you do will make a dwarf grow into a tree!....

the only trimming we do on ours is to remove the old blooms to get a second bloom on the ones we can reach.... and dead wood and those 'oddball' branches that stick out sideways.... never anything that's bigger than a pencil in shaping....we don't trim our new baby ones at all for the first two years to let them 'do their own thing' and show us what they want to grow like..... then the least trimming until they are another year... the third year is when you'll see one growing  the way it is intended to be.....

Answer 2

Either way.  It's more about aesthetics rather than "right" or "wrong".

I go with a more wild look in my own garden, so my vote is no shaping or trimming.  I'm also a lazy gardener, and if I can cut out a chore, deeming it unnecessary, I will.

Also, if I lived far enough south that my Crape Myrtle actually grew into a tree...I'd sure let it do whatever it wanted!!  

I have Crape Myrtle envy...I have one, but it's a "shrub" at best.  I live at the northern end of its range, and if it's not planted in a protected spot (which it's not), it will die to the ground in the winter (which it does).  To its credit, without fail, it will grow three feet every year from the ground, and bloom regardless of the winter it just went through.