{"id":1928,"date":"2017-01-27T08:15:44","date_gmt":"2017-01-27T14:15:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/?p=1928"},"modified":"2017-01-27T08:16:27","modified_gmt":"2017-01-27T14:16:27","slug":"stop-the-mutilation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/stop-the-mutilation\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop The Mutilation!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\tIn coming days, landscape crews will descend upon this city and many others throughout Texas and the South, loppers in hand. The annual mutilation of crape myrtles will commence. When they have finished, assisted by well-meaning but deluded homeowners who think this is necessary, these lovely trees \u2014 they are trees \u2014 will be chopped down to ugly nubs. Eventually, summer blooms will disguise the nubs, but it is still mutilation. Arborists go so far as to call it \u201ccrape murder.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tCrape myrtles have boomed in popularity because they thrive in summer heat and bloom for months. They line esplanades and highway medians to bring needed beauty among the asphalt and concrete. When allowed to grow to maturity, its peeling bark adds to the grandeur of the crape myrtle, of which some species can grow up to 30 feet high. That\u2019s if the landscaping crews don\u2019t get hold of them.<\/p>\n

\tSome fine examples of unmutilated rows of crape myrtles can be found on Sixth Street alongside First Christian Church here in Longview, or in front of the Nacogdoches Post Office, where a stand of tall white crape myrtles brightened many a morning for me. Unfortunately, there are far more examples of what one gardening columnist called Maim Street USA. <\/p>\n

\tDoing so actually causes decay and shortens a crape myrtle\u2019s life. You don\u2019t have to take my word for it, since I am no arborist. Just Google \u201ccrape myrtle mutilation\u201d and you will find a bevy of articles decrying the practice. You will be hard-put to find any defenders of the practice \u2014 except possibly landscaping companies looking to keep checks flowing in January, when most everything is dormant, and there is no grass to mow or leaves to bag.<\/p>\n

\tI quit mutilating crape myrtles after spending an entire Sunday afternoon in Nacogdoches lopping off branches, perched on a stepladder, and hauling off the limbs. I did it for the same reason most folks do it, or pay to have it done. Everybody else who had crape myrtles in the neighborhood was paying their landscape crews to prune them. I was cheap, so I did it myself. <\/p>\n

\tA few days later, I ran into Jeff Abt, the gardening columnist for the Daily Sentinel. I recall complaining about what a pain it was to prune crape myrtles. Jeff became excited, almost frantic. \u201cPruning crape myrtles is absolutely unnecessary and a travesty,\u201d he said, or words to that effect. That was the last time I pruned a crape myrtle. He convinced me my time was better spent reading a book on the deck.<\/p>\n

\tA few years later, Jeff, who has written on this topic even more often than I have, formed SCAMM \u2014 Society\u2019s Crusade Against Myrtle Mutilation \u2014 and began passing out bumper stickers to anyone willing to take the pledge to stop the myrtle mayhem. (Alliteration is one of the weapons in our quiver.) I slapped one on my Jeep\u2019s window and became a member. I still have one stuck on a filing cabinet in my study closet.<\/p>\n

\tCrape myrtles come in all sizes. When planting them, pick one that will not grow too large for the space and force one to prune. There are ways to restore mutilated myrtles, also readily accessible online, and methods to judiciously \u2014 and gently \u2014 prune them.<\/p>\n

\tWhen it is 95 degrees outside in East Texas for weeks, and the humidity is turning the air into a liquid-like substance, not much blooms. The crape myrtle is a hardy, reliable source of beauty. These trees would be even lovelier if folks quit hacking at them. <\/p>\n

\tSo give your landscape guy a generous tip and a couple weeks off. Tell the crew to come back once the tulip tree starts blooming. That means spring is not far around the corner.<\/p>\n

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