In the picture above, it's obvious that something has gone wrong. When you drive past a heavily pruned crepe myrtle tree (occasionally spelled "crape myrtle") your impression might be that someone ...

The neighbors might be pruning crape myrtle wrong, but that doesn’t mean you should butcher yours, too. Perhaps no shrub or tree suffers from the pruning mistreatment that crape myrtles do.

Q: I’m so disappointed and very sad! Last year I planted several crepe myrtle plants in my backyard. Now, my neighbor’s lilacs and forsythia, and a shrub she calls flowering quince ...

If you have chosen a standard variety, let it mature and become the beautiful tree it was meant to be! Crape myrtle trees bloom on the new growth, so any pruning that is needed should be done ...