There are few summer sights more iconic than a crepe myrtle in full bloom. In colorful hues like pink, violet, and red, crepe myrtles are a favorite of gardeners looking for a low maintenance ...

Neil Sperry says it's time to show them some love.

This improperly pruned crape myrtle tree has undergone “crape murder,” which is when the entire crown of the crape myrtle tree is cut off. Courtesy of Leaf & Limb, a Raleigh-based tree care company ...

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 ...

Too often, crape myrtles are cut back to bare trunks because this abuse will yield more flowers. This type of severe pruning results in a shorter bloom time, delayed flowering, weaker branching and ...

Q: Should I remove the seedpods off my crape myrtles? What about cutting them back in general. A: No, and NO! In fact, you should not remove much of anything from the tops of your crape myrtles. I see ...

Although native to eastern Asia, crape myrtles (Lagerstroemia) are almost indispensable in the Southern landscape. Their vibrantly colored flowers in shades of pink, purple, red and white from May to ...

We all enjoy the colorful blooms of flowering crape myrtles in the summer. But it’s those same trees that all too often fall victim to a misguided winter ritual known as “crape murder,” the aggressive ...

Q: Our crape myrtle got out of control, so we cut it down and had the stump dug up. Two years later, little shoots are appearing in the lawn, anywhere from a few inches to four feet away from the ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Getty Images / Joe_Potato There are few summer sights more iconic than a crepe myrtle in full bloom. In colorful hues like pink, ...