Murder Most Foul - Crepe Myrtle Death By Pruning

     I don't need Miss Marple to find out who butchered my Crepe Myrtle trees. I walked in on the last few minutes of the brutal crime, too late to come to the rescue, but not so late I didn't stand there, my finger pointed at the young man with his electric saw, and scream “Murderer!”

     It was a serial killing. In the corner of my yard, by the bathroom window, another Crepe Myrtle had suffered the same abuse.

     The other culprit, the boy's mother, ran to me from the corner of my yard. Clippers were still in her hand. A lone pink blossom and stem dangled from her weapon.

    “They are not dead. Only trimmed. Your two Crepe Myrtles will bloom again.”

The victim (before)

The crime (after)

     Actually, the scene did not play out as I wrote above. The real cause of the problem was me. I hired a tree service, one that had done a grand job in my yard in previous years, to come clean up the overgrown shrubs and trees so I could find my yard again.

     The Crepe Myrtle, smack dab in the middle of my back yard, had grown out of control. My butterfly bushes, also out of control, mingled with the limbs of the tree. It was more than I could handle.

     We walked the yard and I pointed to the two Crepe Myrtles. The one by the bathroom had limbs resting on my roof.

    “Let's trim them both, along with all these shrubs.” I pivoted in place, my outstretched arm pointed to all the overgrowth. I never said how I'd like them to look. I just left it to the professionals.

     Then I went inside to take a nap.

     The murder occurred while I was sleeping.

     The last two weeks driving down my street I noticed the Crepe Myrtles lining the sidewalks, on the county side, had been pruned back to tall, bald knobs.

    I'd be disgusted if the county did this to my yard. That was my thought every time I backed out my driveway to go somewhere. You couldn't miss how desolate the trees looked. The county had to cut back to protect the electric lines, but the view from the lovely planted yards to the stark tree stumps was shocking. Small branches are now popping up. A bad haircut that is starting to grow.
 
    I didn't need the county to muck up my yard. I paid to have it done.

    Now the worst example of all sits on my property. The focal point of a garden I wanted to salvage, now the biggest gardening embarrassment possible.

     Yesterday in the misting rain I went out to take a closer look at the Crepe Myrtle center stage. My hand ran up a sleek, bare, five foot tall, thick trunk. I talked to the tree like it was a child.

     "I'll take care of you. I promise I'll never let this happen again." I couldn't tell if it was tears or rain on my face.

     I bent and placed a kiss on the limb.

     Perhaps it heard me and will work harder to push out new growth. I know I will take care to be more cautious with my yard when letting others do the work.

     The Crepe Myrtle by the bathroom is not as badly cut, but I walked over to it and repeated myself.

     Then I came inside and Googled Crepe Myrtles and discovered the controversies about prunning them.

    Crepe Myrtle pruning is greatly debated in the south. With the concept of flowering on new wood, many end their growing season murdering their Crepe Myrtles. While the plant doesn’t actually die, an over zealous pruning job definitely murders the look of one. Gardening With Confidance blog.

   “Crepe murder.” I didn’t invent the term. I think it was coined by Byers Nursery, a big wholesale grower of crepe myrtles in Huntsville, Alabama. I just did what we Americans have always done so well — pass off other’s good ideas as your own.

    Crepe murder is bad for several reasons.

    1. It turns beautiful trees into ugly stumps.

    2. It prevents the formation of pretty, mottled bark on maturing trunks.

    3. A forest of skinny, whip-like shoots sprouts from the end of each ugly stump. These whips are too weak to hold up the flowers, so the branches often bend to the ground, like a drunk who’s about to lose his lunch.  From The Grumpy Gardener, Southern Living

    Be patient, I whisper. I will welcome two drunk looking trees into my yard, as long as they come back and bloom again.

     Right now I am debating about having a still drink myself. While we all got away with murder, the guilt is hanging over me as heavy as the branches were on my Crepe Myrtle.

     Lucky for me, my trees can't shout out, "Off with her head."

     While I didn't handle the saw, I cetainly decapitated them.

Death By Roses

Day one, daylight savings time. For a gal who has put off working in the garden for three years the knowledge that this was the beginning of daylight savings was like an alarm clock blaring in my brain. Everything I have not done in three years I decided to tackle today. Well, not everything. But more than I'd done in months, years.


I am blessed with a private back yard that has several well established beds. I do nothing and things bloom. Not the same things every year, since the stronger plants take over the weaker ones. I also have a variety of small trees in my big beds that were not there last time I really took a look. The larger trees put off seeds, pods, whatever trees do, and baby trees were birthed. Trees that now will need to be dug out if I hope to have flowers again. But wait, my butterfly bushes, six feet tall will bloom. Never mind.

My huge deck with the lattice inserts blocks the offensive part of the yard, the untamed, unruly, ungodly mess that used to be full of daffodils and lilies. My containers that line the brick patio and deck await lavender, rosemary, and other small herbs. There is hope for me with some garden chores.

I used to spend hours in my yard, years ago. Things have changed, and six dogs romping in the yard bring their own pleasure. Flowers are not as important as the dogs being able to run through the remains of the grass and bask in the warm sun on my deck.

My concern for my dogs may have prompted my garden endeavors today. I could not go down the deck steps into my yard without being grabbed by large, leafy, green limbs of another unknown border plant, out of control by the back of the house. A lone, almost dead rose bush, reached out from the backside of the house, down my the entrance to my basement. Brown, thorny, limbs, like an octopus reaching out in all directions. I knew those two areas would be my target today.

I felt well equipped. I'd just purchased used vintage clippers from an antique shop. Rusty with charm, I was curious to see if they were sharp enough to cut the spindly limbs. They were. Like a mad woman in my pj bottoms and sweater top, I clipped and pulled, breaking some branches by hand, superwoman at best, nut case at least, until the back side of my house looked respectable. I came away unscathed. My new garden gloves with their heavy palms seemed perfect to gather the limbs and drop them in the back fenced area that I use for mulch. Ok. I don't use it for mulch. It is just easier to toss everything over the back fence where it can't been seen, then to haul it down my long driveway, to be picked up by the garbage men tomorrow.

The sun was hot. Two of my dogs followed every step I made, Chloe, the seven pound Chi, and Bertha, the wildebeest. The other dogs saw I was at work, and went back to sleep on the sunroom sofa. I joined them for thirty minutes, since all the activity had me at heart attack level. My face was beet red.

My second wind hit me an hour later. I grabbed my gloves and headed straight to the back bed. My prize rose bush was out of control. It nailed me with its long arms as I passed it earlier to dump the other clippings over the fence. Three years and it had reached out to cover the entire area. It roamed over my six foot, vintage, metal angel in the middle of the bed, and covered an even larger pink iron cart. Tendrils wove in and out of the angel and cart, so long I could not tell where each began and ended. I knew it was not safe to walk by the bedI had already gotten nailed. Thorns eight feet high stood two feet past the flower bed. Soon my lawn man would be back to take care of my weeds, mow them down until, squashed, the green color gave the illusion of grass. I didn't want one of those dangerous thorny arms to nab him as he rode by on his mower. Then there were the dogs. I worried they would try to run into the bed and be trapped in a maze of thorns.

For over an hour I carefully clipped, tugged, pulled, and cleaned out the overgrowth. Thorns tore holes in my cotton PJ bottoms, snagged my white fleece vest, and ripped at my legs and arms. They pierced my gloves and drew a spot of blood. Time after time, I got caught and had to twirl to unhook myself from the rose monster. I succeeded with my chore. By twilight my bush was tamed. The last injury came as I lifted the piles of thorny limbs to dump over the fence.

I don't know if this is the season to prune roses. I never know what to do when in my garden. It was time to take control and that is what I did today. There is enough of my rose bush left with life so I will be curious to see if it blooms. It was no more shocked by my attack then I was by its attack on me! I am still alive, I assume it is too. We will meet again later this spring to see who fared the best.

Today I felt like I had death by roses. Tonight I am treating myself to death by chocolate.