Hi, this is Matt with TurfWorks and we’re out today at one of the HOA’s that we service to look at some Crepe Myrtles and how to correctly trim them. This is Martin’ Flores one of our commercial crew leaders and he is going to show us how to properly trim a Crepe Myrtle. Without trimming the incorrect way, which is to cut the plant off at the base, I know a lot of people do that and you may see them around town. It is definitely not the ideal way to trim a Crepe Myrtle. It really does no good for the plant and overall a bad idea. For really healthy good looking multi-trunked Crepe Myrtles you want to avoid that practice as much as possible. What we want to do is come up to the canopy you want to remove a lot of the canopy but leave some. Martin’ can you tell us a little bit about how you go about deciding which branches to trim off of the canopy and which branches you want to leave. You want to cut the ones pointing down and you want to cut them six inches from the base of the canopy as well as remove all of the little dead branches. You want to try and shape the tree in the way you might want it to grow in the future. You want to cut the branches that are pointing down that are in later years not going to provide the shape you desire. We’re going to go ahead and let Martin’ and the crew trim this Crepe Myrtle and we’ll come back at the end and show you what it looks like. This is the Crepe Myrtle after it has been trimmed, as you can see all of the trunks are still intact, we’ve left about six inches on the canopy, trimmed all of the small branches and removed any dead branches. We now have a Crepe Myrtle that will look awesome this summer. Remember it is totally unnecessary and not a good practice to trim the plant at the base. If you have any questions or need any help with Crepe Myrtles please feel free to give us a call at 405-494-6020.

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