I usually wait until mid-January to write something on this topic but this week I saw my first severe pruning of a crape myrtle for this dormant season earlier this month. So, instead of visions of ...

Not long ago, I received the following email: “I have two crape myrtle trees in my front yard, one about 25 years old and one about 10 years old. They are in full sun. They usually bloom later than ...

Timing is everything when it comes to pruning a crape myrtle. So when is it too late to prune crape myrtles if you want blooms in the summer? Along with not cutting off next year’s flowers, your ...

Somehow, the belief that crape myrtles should be brutally pruned by cutting off their tops persists, even though it's inaccurate. Crape murder is a term that has been coined to describe this severe ...

This fast-growing (up to 5 feet per year) woody plant flowers all summer long, making crape myrtle a popular garden favorite. “Specimen trees can be great for shade in the summer,” says Tracy Harrison ...

Q: Why are the trunks of my crape myrtles turning black? They look rather unsightly. Mine aren't the only ones doing this -- many in our neighborhood look the same. Is it a disease? Is it going to ...

Dear Neil: I recently bought a house in rural East Texas. It’s on 2.5 acres of heavily forested land. I didn’t walk the entire area before the closing, and only recently have I discovered that I ...

The latest threat to our landscape focuses on crape myrtles, that summer-flowering small tree that’s becoming more and more popular as the climate warms. An Asian-native bug known as crape myrtle bark ...

Crape murder is happening all over town. It doesn’t matter how horticulturists talk about proper pruning techniques, each year more and more trees are cut back to stubs. Standard crape myrtles have ...