When to prune crape myrtles

Late winter while the plant is dormant, before new spring growth starts. Crape myrtles (Lagerstroemia indica) flower on new wood, which sets the timing. Type your town for the dates at your weather station.

How to prune crape myrtles

• Most crape myrtles need little or no pruning when they are planted where they have room to grow.
• For a tree form, keep 3 to 5 strong trunks and remove the rest at ground level. Take out crossing or rubbing branches and twiggy shoots growing into the center.
• Cut side branches back to the branch collar, the slightly swollen ring where a branch joins a larger one, instead of leaving stubs.
• Pull or snap off sprouts at the base while they are still small and green.
• Removing spent flower clusters on smaller plants can bring a second, lighter bloom in late summer.
• Choosing a type whose mature size fits the spot is the best way to avoid heavy pruning; crape myrtles range from dwarf shrubs a few feet tall to trees 20 feet or more.
• A topped crape myrtle can be rebuilt: cut it low while dormant, keep 3 to 5 of the strongest new sprouts, and allow several years for a natural tree shape.
• Dwarf and shrub-type crape myrtles can be cut back hard every late winter, even to near the ground, because they flower on new growth.
• Removing the lower side branches as a tree-form plant matures gives it a tree shape and shows off the trunks.

What to avoid

• Do not top the plant or cut every trunk back to the same knobby stubs each year. It does not give better flowering and leaves thin, weak sprouts that bend or break under the flowers.
• Skip fall pruning. It can push soft growth that cold weather then damages.
• Avoid pruning late in spring after growth has begun. Flowers form on the new shoots, so late cuts delay the first blooms.

Pruning window by zone

Counted from the typical last frost of each zone (the middle value among its towns of 10,000 people or more). Buds swell earlier in a warm spring, so watch the plant as well as the calendar.

Regional notes

• Warm South: Extension calendars in Arkansas and Georgia put the window at roughly late February to mid-March, before buds break.