Garden & Landscape plant articles > When & how to prune deciduous tree - Jen

When & how to prune deciduous tree - Crepe Myrtle

Hi

 

Can you please advise me when is the best time to prune my pride of  india (Laegerstroemia indica)?   The tree is about 18 months old, approx 2.5m tall and is starting to get rather leggy.   It is starting to lose its leaves now as we are coming into our dry season here in Darwin.  I want to try and thicken the tree up a bit and also encourage as many flowers as possible.    I know that it flowers in Oct/Nov and assume that it woud be best to prune about July, but don't want to cut off any potential flowers that might already be forming.   Any advice you can give would be appreciated.   Regards Jen

 

Answer

 

Hi Jen,

           Yes, the best time to prune when the tree has no leaves on it.    You can cut them back quite hard if required.    You may loose some flowers,  but the tree is only in early stages so there won't be that many flowers anyway.    I would suggest that you focus on creating a vase shape for your tree.    This will entail cutting the tree back to a point where it (v's) or branches,  at this point it will create a number of new shoots (branches) in spring.  They will be fairly weak for a period but will harden up in the longer term.     You may like to repeat this next year (or the following year) by cutting back to the next branching.    By doing this you will encourge new branches to develop and in the longer term more flowers will develop on the ends of the stems.   The final shape will be tree with short trunk and a nice broad branching canopy.    It is important to start this work early in a trees development.      You are in a good position to do this as your tree is still only small.

 

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