Purchased from Rosemount December 2020 $20.
1.5 M H x 4' W.
Flowers all summer into Autumn, lots of sun with a little shade, suitable for larger pots, growing to 1.5M tall.
Pruning instructions on Dwarf Crepe Myrtle from Wilson Bros. Gardens, The site is full of down to earth advice on garden design, plants and care. My downfall is pruning, am hoping this advice will help
The methods of pruning dwarf crape myrtle range from easy to not at
all. For starters, the plants really don’t require pruning - they have a
slower growth rate than their larger growing cousins and usually have a
good natural form all on their own. That said, I usually do at least a
light annual pruning on mine.
If your plants
are full and dense, I'd suggest leaving them alone, or maybe just use
hand pruners to snip off the old flower/seed heads from the previous
season.
When To Prune
Late Winter
- You'll want to prune dwarf crape myrtle shrubs in late winter or
early spring, before or just when new leaves begin to emerge. That said,
broken or stray branches that spoil the shape of the crape myrtle can
be removed any time of year.
Summer Pruning -
Deadheading (the removal of faded flowers) can be done during the
flowering season to encourage rebloom from summer through fall on some
varieties. Either way, it won't hurt to deadhead spent flower clusters.
To remove a faded flower cluster, simply snip it off at its base with a
pair of hand pruners.
How To Prune
If
your dwarf crape myrtle is young and sparsely branched, with maybe just
a few widely spaced stems/branches, you might want to give it a pruning
to make it grow more dense. If so, use a pair of bypass hand pruners to
cut these long branches back by one-quarter to half their height. Cut
all stems in a way that the plant will form a nice mounded or rounded
shape when the plant fills out with foliage. In other words, don't just
"flat-top" it.
Keep in mind that wherever
you make a cut on a branch two or more new branches will emerge from
just beneath where you made the cut. So, when you're pruning the
following year in late winter, you can make your cuts several inches
above where you pruned the previous year. This pruning method will
double the number of branches every year, which also doubles the number
of blooms. After a few years of pruning like this you shouldn't have to
prune at all except to remove a stray or broken branch - the plant will
keep a nice, dense form all on its own.
Below
are some diagrams that show how we prune the established crape myrtle
shrubs in our gardens. As mentioned, we prune annually in late winter
for several years in a row and then usually cease the annual pruning
after that to allow the plant to grow naturally.
