Great question. Using sealants or pruning paints were popular for many years but were found to be damaging to the plant by holding moisture and causing potential rot below the sealed in area. I would recommend not using anything on the cuts. Crepe Myrtles are very hardy and should recover from any winter damage caused by the early pruning. - Allen

Good afternoon, Joey - yes, it's perfectly fine to cut the stems of the Crepe Myrtle back to the ground without hurting the plant.

Hey Yvonne, Great question. I believe your problem with the wasp and the black stuff are related and by getting rid of the sooty mold (black stuff) it will solve your wasp problem. Your Crape Myrtle, more than likely, has an infestation of crape myrtle bark scale (a small insect that attaches its self to the tree and sucks the fluid out of the tree). As it feeds on the plant, the scale secretes honeydew, which is a sticky substance that accumulates on the limbs and on anything under the tree. This honeydew ferments and turns black. The wasp along with other insects feed on the honeydew thus attracting the wasp to the tree. So by controlling the bark scale, this should also keep the wasp away. Here are a couple of the more common methods that are used to control the scale: - One is an application of a horticulture oil while your tree is dormant. This method is more labor intense and requires spraying the tree completely making sure to get the spray into the cervices at the limb junctions. This should be done now while the tree is dormant. - The second method is to drench the soil with a systemic product that is mixed with water and poured around the base of the tree this is absorbed by the roots of the tree and moves into the tree. This method is best applied as the tree begins to green up usually around the first of April and works for an entire year. Hope that helps, Allen

Cut them back below the ugly knots. Allow them to grow a foot or two then remove all but two of the new limbs and allow them to grow. It will take a couple of years to get back close to how the originally looked. - Allen

@@cityofhotsprings Allen, thank you so much for the advice! I definitely will do this!

Cheryl, Thanks for your question. First, lets talk about what not to do. Many people plant Crape Myrtle in a location that after time become to large for that location. Then top the tree leaving unsightly stubs that over time create knots that produce numerous new weak shoot growth. This causes stress to the tree making it more vulnerable to pest and disease, along with the undesirable aesthetics it produces. Now, let us look at pruning your tree. Here are a few things to consider when pruning: - Never remove more than 1/3 of the branches. - Make sure to use the 3 D’s when removing branches: dead, diseased and damaged. - If the tree must be downsized, do a crown reduction using reduction cuts rather than topping as I described earlier. By doing a crown reduction with the reduction cuts this will keep your tree more symmetrical and a normal appearance. Reduction cuts are made by moving down from the tallest limbs to a lateral limb at least 1/3 the size of the limb you are cutting and making your cut just above that limb. This will minimize new excessive growth which causes weak limbs. - Heading cuts are the least desirable and should only be used as a last resort when lateral limbs are not available. These are made by cutting the limb just above a node ie. growing point. This will cause excessive growth and is the reason it is not recommended. Good Luck. Crape Myrtle actually require very little pruning when the right size tree is planted in the right place. There are numerous sizes of Crape Myrtle from a shrub that only gets a few feet tall all the way to the large varieties. The time to prune crape myrtle and also fruit trees is now. For more information, check out this pruning Crape Myrtle video: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/islglrh3qs6cnKM.html Allen

@@cityofhotsprings thank you so much for this information. I greatly appreciate your reply.

@@cityofhotsprings - You say: "The time to prune Crepe Myrtle is now." However . . . We need a season or months of the year to aim for . . . something definite. How do we know when you recorded this video? And KZfaq only tells us that you uploaded it 4 years ago / Jan 21, 2020 . . . but you may have recorded it in another season entirely.