Is There Hope for My Crape Myrtle That Has Been Topped?

The Problem

• It isn't clear why crape myrtles are so often the target of tree-topping. Perhaps their relatively small size prompts people to treat them like shrubs. Or maybe gardeners who see landscape crews top others' crape myrtles think this is the way to prune them. Although crape myrtles bloom on new wood, they don't need pruning to stimulate flowering. Topping them in fall or winter is particularly harmful, warns the U.S. National Arboretum. You may lose your tree to cold weather because pruning before spring reduces cold hardiness.

Gradual Rehabilitation

• If your crape myrtle survives topping, it will produce excessive growth once it breaks dormancy. One approach to rehabilitating a topped crape myrtle is to thin out the many sprouts that will appear on the stubs of each trunk, leaving only the strongest branches. Remove any suckers that sprout from the ground, too. Continue allowing only a few branches to grow on each trunk each year. It may take a few years for the tree to stop producing this unwanted growth, but this approach will help improve the tree's appearance, as well as preserve its health.

Desperate Measures

• If topping severely disfigures your crape myrtle, cutting all the trunks back to within a few inches of the ground in early spring and starting over may save your tree. Thin the many sprouts from the tree's base to a few trunks; three or five will produce a pleasing shape. Allow only these trunks to grow each year; remove any new suckers emerging from the ground and trim off side branches if there are too many or if they are too close to the ground. Within a few years, you will again have a tree with a natural shape.

Prevention

• You should ensure that no one will commit crape murder on your trees. You can begin by choosing crape myrtles that are the proper size for your landscape and place them so they won't grow too close to structures, boundaries or power lines. Educate any volunteer or hired garden helpers that topping is not only unnecessary, but harmful to crape myrtles. Finally, properly maintain your trees by removing only damaged, dead or diseased wood in early spring. Prune off old flower clusters or seeds if you can easily reach them, but there is no need to remove these on larger crape myrtles.