Reply #1: They should be charged with crape murder! [View All]

That technique of butchering crape myrtles is horrid! If they don't want their crape myrtles to "hang down in the way" they should plant the kind that grow large and let them just grow, maybe prune the lower branches. Hacking the trunks off at the height shown in the photo with the article will just insure that the limbs will be in people's way.

Our "elder" crape myrtles, which are about 30 years old, are 30-40 feet tall and have the most beautiful trunks. Except for some small sucker stems coming up from the roots, the branches are over twelve feet up. The only pruning we ever did was on dead limbs and those that grew toward the house and rubbed the eaves.

The younger batch of crape myrtles are a smaller variety. They get at most 12-15 feet tall and do tend to be more bushy. We transplanted some to near the new house. My plan is once they get a decent height that I will prune the lower branches to accentuate the trunks and encourage the leafy branches to be above window height.