Put the chainsaw away and only use hand shears, loppers, and a hand saw.

How to prune a crepe myrtle into a tree. Selectively prune upper branches along each stem to shape a flowing, open canopy. Crepe myrtles should be pruned very early in the spring. A natural style of pruning will mostly address the limbs within the tree that may be keeping your crepe myrtle tree from putting on the best show it can.

Cut off suckers from the bottom, rubbing and cross growing branches and branches growing inward. I know many of you have crepe myrtle trees and want to care for them as well as you can. Pruning should be done while the crepe myrtle is still in winter dormancy before it starts putting out new growth.

Start with the branches coming up from the base. Hand shears help with cutting smaller pieces of the tree, loppers help by removing slightly larger limbs, and the hand. Make pruning cuts for shaping, removing dead and damaged branches, and giving the plant structure.

With proper pruning, any of our beautiful sizes and varieties can become a single stem plant. Want to see more southern living videos? Crepe myrtles make ideal feature trees for home gardens, because they’re compact in size, and respond well to pruning.

To prune crepe myrtle, rogers says to start with a pair of sharp pruning shears that you’ve wiped down with rubbing alcohol, rinsed and dried. Gradually cut off all side branches from the main base as the tree gets taller. All crepe myrtles need to be grown in an open sunny.

Cut off any unwanted suckers growing out of the roots or the base of the tree. Simply remove any extra stems protruding from the ground. Move next to all side branches growing from the main trunks up to a height of at least.