Please don’t do this to your trees. It hurts my soul.
cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/39080622
Crape Myrtle is the Bradford Pear of our time.
I feel like Chinese pistache is a closer match. Invasive, prone to branch drop, the hot thing everyone plants everywhere… I don’t love crape myrtles but they have been around for a while and other than convincing lots of people to prune them poorly, they haven’t created too many problems.
Why do people do this to begin with? Is it just a lazy way to control the plant’s size?
People see this everywhere and think landscapers are experts in plant health, so they copy it.
Every summer, I have to convince my bf not to lop the tops off of plants in our yard for this reason.
Basically. Some people also falsely believe it improves the bloom. It actually reduces it.
Mostly it’s just tradition perpetuated by copycatting without real knowledge of tree biology. In my area everyone cuts mulberries this way which is even worse since they’re large trees that can become hazardous if mismanaged.
When trees are trimmed too heavily, it triggers a strong growth response with tons of competing, weakly attached sprouts. If these sprouts grow large, they may eventually collapse under their own weight. Since crape myrtles are small it’s a small issue but with larger trees it can be a real hazard. Which is ironic since people often do this to their trees to make them feel safer.
Edit: here’s a good resource on how to prune and how not to prune crape myrtles, since the other user appears confused on this topic: https://wayne.ces.ncsu.edu/2025/02/pruning-crape-myrtles-the-correct-way/
There’s no evidence crape myrtles need to be pruned this way, and I’ve seen many wonderful specimens that were not.
all crape myrtles are crap myrtles
True but some are more crap than others.
but alternatively, why do you have a problem with the skeleton prune?
It’s not good for the tree and also it’s just ugly.
it’s not bad for the tree, necessarily. Most horticultural monstrosities have been selected to basically depend on occasional massive prunings to keep themselves from ripping themselves to shreds over the years.
Even very large species can benefit immensely from an extreme prune, which simulates the kinds of massive catastrophic defoliation evens that happen in nature all the time (fires, hurricanes, tornadoes). It gives the fire branches of the tree more time to and get big with less load to bear.
Sorry this is misinformation. Crape myrtles do tolerate this better than most species but I’ve seen trees killed by this type of “pruning”.
New branches that grow will be poorly attached and become hazards in future years. If the branches are large in diameter or if it’s a species that compartmentalizes decay poorly, then the cut end will rot, often into the main trunk and can cause catastrophic failure in future years. So this is not only ill advised, it’s dangerous to do to a large tree.
Source: https://www.treesaregood.org/Portals/0/TreesAreGood_Why Topping Hurts_0321.pdf
There are some cultivars that grow in odd, unstable forms and can benefit from pruning, but that requires carefully guiding the tree’s growth through selective cuts. Not indiscriminate hacking that only makes the problem worse.
Misinformation? As in… you are/ were putting out misinformation?
Its not misinformation whatsoever to suggest that skeleton pruning is an important practice, and what you are doing is deceptive. Skeleton pruning isn’t just a regular horticultural practice, but quite literally, hundreds and thousands of species simply will tear themselves apart without regular, extreme pruning.
We’re not talking about native plants in some particular ecological context where… well… plants just die some times. And thats fine.
We’re talking about human planted, human managed trees, completely outside of the ecological context they evolved in.
These are parking lot trees. We’re talking about species that are expected to survive in the equivalent of an ecological toilet. And yeah, they’ll destroy themselves without regular management. That’s how plants work.
I already provided a source from the ISA, which is the leading authority on this topic. Please provide a source to back your claims or misinformation is an accurate summation of what you’ve written.
PS: I’m an arborist and if you ask any arborist you will get the same opinion because this is a well established principle in arboriculture at this point, and has been for years. I’m not sure why you’re trying to die on this hill which you evidently don’t have any real knowledge about.
