Crepe Myrtles correctly pruned and maintained are visually stunning, creating colorful focal points and are wonderful accent plants which provide enduring curb appeal (image: Covingtonnursery.com).
By John Green, Certified Texas Expert Gardener, Orange County TX
Readers apparently Winter has decided it’s time to make her frigid presence known, arriving in SETX for an extended period…the entire week! Fortunately for us all, winter is most often fleeting, a bit of a nuisance lasting a couple of days with balmy weather returning quickly. Hopefully, each of you relocated sensitive and tropical plants to protected locations or had a plan of action (which includes having materials on hand) to protect plants. Often it is impossible or impractical to relocate large plants, which means they must be ‘protected in place’ which is challenging and daunting depending on the number of plants requiring protection! Each year there are always a few plants where I literally ‘drag my feet’ before relocating them (some gardeners may be so inclined as to attach a label…such as procrastinator, this gardeners’ label maker is broken). I intentionally wait (until the last possible moment) to allow citrus trees, Bougainvillea’s, and Birds-of-Paradise growing in large planters to remain outdoors until a few hours before frigid weather strikes due to the size of the containers, as they require two or more people to assist me in transporting them into the greenhouse!
Spring gardening tasks are plentiful and for me many are enjoyable (time outdoors is always a pleasure). One of my personal favorite tasks in getting ready for spring is pruning trees and shrubs. Crepe Myrtles are small, multi-trunked trees that too many gardeners simply do not prune correctly, in fact the word “botch” is more applicable! A Southern Living Magazine article (1997) referred to the adverse pruning practice of severely cutting crepe myrtles down to stubs, terming it “crepe myrtle murder”. The coined phrase remains in use by many gardeners to this day… unfortunately as does the practice! Each year readers request me to write about this topic, as a reminder to us all, time to “step-up” our pruning techniques!
Drive around our towns and neighborhoods within the golden triangle and the unfortunate effects of this type of pruning are prevalent almost everywhere. There are too many gardeners that believe extreme pruning of crepe myrtles is a good way to reduce the trees size quickly or ‘forcing’ them to “fit” into a small garden area. Crepe Myrtles are trees people, they should not be forced into being something they are not as they will languish becoming frail and susceptible to vectors and disease.
Pruning crepe myrtles using a chainsaw to remove all top growth may seem the fastest and best pruning method but at what cost? The tree’s health? to health of the tree? Butchering crepe myrtles’ trunks by cutting their trunks to uniform, identical heights force the tree to grow from where the pruning occurred. Utilizing this approach of extreme pruning technique year-after-year forms ‘mangled’ knots, drastically diminishing the tree’s aesthetic. This ‘quick’ pruning approach causes severe injury to the tree by weakening and damaging limbs while shortening the tree’s life. Spindly branches will grow from cut areas that can’t support the weight of flowers, meaning branches can with wind gusts.
Pruning Guide:
· The best time to prune is now (Winter) through mid-February
· Remove shoots from around the tree’s base (called suckers)
· Take off dead and crossed branches which are rubbing against one another
· Misaligned branches (branches which detract or are incongruous with trees’ “V” shaped form
· Eliminate branches growing inward towards the center to maintain air circulation
· Cut branches back to the trunk or a larger branch, never leave partial branches or stubs
· Pruning is not required yearly but should be performed on an ‘as needed’ basis
· If you have transgressed pruning Crepe Myrtles in previous years, remove all trunks to 4-inches from ground. A shrub will emerge in spring, then choose 3 to 5 trunks and begin growing another Crepe Myrtle without deformed ‘knots’
· Pruning is a good time to inspect trees for Crepe Myrtle Bark Scale (CMBS)
This tree is infested with Crepe Myrtle Bark Scale (CMBS) denoted by the grayish- white insects on the trunks and the black sooty mold which covers the entire surface of the trunks’ bark (image: arborscapesllc.com).
Crepe Myrtle Bark Scale (CMBS) is a small insect which appears as grayish white leaving a velvet-like coating. CMBS can appear anywhere on Crepe Myrtles, usually near pruning areas and branch forks on mature wood. The initial sign of CMBS is black sooty mold on the tree’s bark, which can be misleading since another common pest (aphids) can leave a sooty mold. A thorough inspection of the affected area is needed to correctly identify the pest. CMBS can overwinter in most of the insect’s life stages: eggs, nymphs, adult females have all been observed overwintering beneath loose bark, and inside dead or diseased limbs. CMBS can be difficult to control requiring multiple treatments over several seasons.
Treatment and control options are best to begin late April or early May before Crepe Myrtles begin to flush. Apply a soil drench of imidacloprid product during this period. CMBS is in our area and my recommendation is to apply this as a preventative measure during spring. The imidacloprid is water soluble which must be watered into the root zone at the tree’s canopy (drip line) where the tree’s feeder roots are located.
Until next time fellow gardeners, let’s go out and ‘prune’ ourselves a greener and more sustainable world, one plant at a time! Please send your gardening questions to: jongreene57@gmail.com.
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