I have several very tall mature crepe myrtles along the front of my house in the flower beds. Unfortunately they have grown so tall that they are now much taller than the house. The main trunks extend over the edge of the roof! I would like to trim them substantially - nopefully no more than a 5 foot trunk. Is this feasible and what are the consequences?

Answer #2 · Brent Wilson's Answer · Hi Ed - Sounds like someone planted the wrong variety in front of your house. Same thing happened in the last home I lived in. They were Natchez crape myrtles and over 20 feet tall. I removed them. When they grow this large, it's really difficult to prune them down to 5 feet and end up with a nice looking tree. Problem is, you'll end up with trunk stumps 6 to 10 inches in diameter with long shoots that will grow from just beneath where you sawed them off. To me, this is unsightly. So, in your situation, just not sure if that's what you want to do? Other than removing the trees, the other option would be to start them over. This means sawing them off at the ground. Many new shoots will emerge. You can select 1 to three of these to be the new main trunks. Let the shoots grow the first year and top them at about 3 to 5 feet in height. Then follow the instructions for pruning in the article that John provided a link to.

Fell free to upload a picture of the trees. This way I can maybe give more clear cut advice.

Hope this info helped,

Brent)