The Most Common Landscape Crime in North Florida
Every January and February, you can drive through Tallahassee's neighborhoods and watch it happen: crape myrtles being cut back to stubs. Three-inch diameter trunks topped to ugly knuckles. The multi-trunk structure that made the tree beautiful removed entirely, replaced with a collection of amputated stumps.
This practice has a name: crape murder.
It's so widespread that many homeowners assume it's the correct way to maintain crape myrtles — they see it done everywhere, including by professional landscapers, so it must be right. It isn't.
What Crape Murder Is
Crape murder is the practice of cutting a crape myrtle's trunk or major branches back to stubs — regardless of size — every year or every few years, supposedly to "control" the tree or "encourage" flowering.
The results:
- Large wounds that can't close properly
- Rapid growth of weakly attached water sprouts from each cut point (producing more and denser growth than before, the opposite of "control")
- Ugly knuckle growths at every cut point that enlarge and become permanent fixtures of the tree's silhouette
- Reduced bloom quality over time
- Shortened tree lifespan
- A structurally compromised tree that's vulnerable to storm damage
There is no horticultural justification for this practice.
Why It Happens
Tradition and mimicry. People see it done, assume it's correct, and do it themselves. Landscaping crews are often instructed by clients to do what was done before.
Misunderstanding of crape myrtle biology. Crape myrtles bloom on new growth — so cutting them back does produce new growth that flowers. This creates the illusion that topping caused the blooms. But untouched crape myrtles also bloom prolifically. The topping is irrelevant to flowering.
"Too big" perception. Crape myrtles that were planted in the wrong spot — too close to a house, under power lines, in a small planting strip — get topped to control size. The right answer is to plant appropriately sized varieties in appropriate spaces. There are crape myrtle varieties that naturally grow to 3 feet and others to 30 feet.
What Correct Crape Myrtle Maintenance Looks Like
In most cases, nothing. A crape myrtle planted in the right location and allowed to grow naturally needs very little pruning. The natural form — multi-trunk, vase-shaped, layered — is the beautiful form.
What can actually be done:
Remove suckers — sprouts from the base of the trunk. These are the one category of crape myrtle "pruning" that makes consistent sense. Sucker removal keeps the multi-trunk base clean.
Deadheading spent blooms — removing seed heads after flowering can encourage a second bloom flush. Cut seed heads only, not branches.
Removing crossing or rubbing branches — standard structural maintenance.
Crown lifting — removing lower branches to raise the canopy for clearance, done at appropriate growth junctions.
Removing interior crossing branches — improving air circulation within the crown.
None of this involves cutting back to stubs. Cuts are made at branch junctions, not at arbitrary points along the stem.
What to Do With an Already-Butchered Tree
If you've inherited a repeatedly topped crape myrtle, you have a few options:
Let it grow. The tree will develop a more natural form over years. The knuckle growths at previous cut points will never go away, but the overall structure improves as the natural branching above them fills in.
Remove and start over. For severely damaged trees, starting with a correctly planted, appropriately-sized variety is sometimes the cleanest path. Crape myrtles transplant well.
Selective restructuring. An arborist can work to improve the structure by removing some of the worst water sprouts and encouraging better form, but cannot undo major cuts.
Choosing the Right Variety for the Right Space
Much crape murder happens because the variety was wrong for the space. The solution isn't annual hacking — it's matching variety to site at planting.
Crape myrtle varieties range from:
- Dwarf varieties (3-6 feet) — for small planting strips and foundation planting
- Medium varieties (8-15 feet) — for most residential landscape situations
- Large varieties (20-30 feet) — for large lawn specimens and street planting
Knowing the mature size of what you're planting prevents the "it got too big" problem that drives most crape murder.
Questions about crape myrtle care in Tallahassee? Call (850) 570-4074 or request a consultation online.