What you described about the multiple branches radiating around the trunk, just below where the trunk has been top cut, is a typical growth pattern for such drastic top pruning. All too often growers have already done such pruning to larger crape myrtles when they are shipped to the retail nurseries. Did your area get the recent days' hard freeze around the Easter holiday? If so the CM in question might have a lot of dead wood which needs to be pruned out. If such a freeze happened, watch the tree as its remaining buds leaf out again. Once the tree appears to be fully leafing out enough to look recovered from any winter or freeze damage; totally remove any trunks or branches which fail to releaf. Also from the trunks nearest your house, completely remove all the way to the trunk any branches in the canopy which you can clearly tell will grow to infringe on your roof. Throughout the following growing seasons feed the tree with slow release quality food, and after every week which fails to provide an inch of rain for the shrub, suppliment the tree with that much water. Over the summer let the tree bloom naturally, and do not prune off the resulting seeds in an effort to extend your bloom season to the first freeze of late fall or early winter. By letting the tree bloom by itself and by being patient if it seems to slow down in bloom presentation after the first bloom flush; the tree will be enabled to put forth effort into thickening its branches and developing its proper rooting perportions. After the tree goes dormant, depending on when temps drop low enough for that, consider the space which any branching from the trunks still invade your roof line. cut, at that time, each trunk, all the way down to the root ball, whose canopy clearly will grow to infringe on your roof line. Hopefully when you have accomplished all the above pruning you will end up with the best of either a one or three main leader trunks. Then, in early march of the next year, prune out again all brittle dead wood, brake off the remaining seed pods and their twigs. Then turn your focus onto any remaining radiating branches which are growing just beneath the previously described, chopped off trunks. Preserve only a flexible and clearly healthy branch which grows the most directly upward and toward the direction where you want the trunk to continue growing. Prune away any other branches which are growing around the trunk near the same level of the healthy upward growing branch you selected to retain. To repeat: the one branch you choose to keep growing off the end of such chopped off trunks should be the one out of the ratiating bunches which appeares to be growing most upright, and growing in the right direction for the retained branch to assume the role of developing into a continuation of the trunk. Hopefully each single branch you select to continue the remaining trunks are thick enough to survive the following winter freezes. If not you will need to wrap each and their tunks with cotton insulator wrap prior to each freeze. If the temps are forecast to drop down to a hard freeze than add bubble wrap around the cotton wrap. Just be sure to remove the plastic bubble wrap any time the temps rise back up above 33 F. degrees. The above advised action takes a lot of dilligent effort, so if you do not think the tree is worth the trouble, simply remove it, grind the stump and main roots and purchase a 10 to 15 gallon sized, 25 to 30 feet potential height grower Crape Myrtle which has not also already been such drastically top pruned-down by the grower. With any such new CM tree you plant in the area, make certain to plant it far enough from the house to prevent roof damage, and to also prune train it properly each year just as you first described above.

I like the lattice. That's new too isn't it? Don't recall it from your last photo. Do you plan for clematis for the lattice area? It will grow happily entwined up into the stair railings so if you think the railings will need painting/staining in the next few years, might want to do it in advance of planting. That way you don't have to chop back vines for several years. The foliage will help keep the sun effects off the wood so the paint/stain lasts longer. Clematis has a certain bloom time and span but you can put annual vines like cardinal climber to bring color to an already bloomed perennial vine.

I've seen them braided and they look kind of neat when they get larger. I don't think it will be shrubby later on. Think more vase shaped with several trunks. You can prune them up later on as they grow so you have a canopy effect. I've seen where people will plant them every 6 or 8 feet and then prune them up so they mend together above so they provide a wide natural shade. Whatever you decide, PLEASE do not train them as a single trunk and then prune off all the branches every spring. Crape Murder, people call it. They'll survive it, but they don't thrive.

Sammy, On that website, I believe they're referring to topping, which is really overdone in commercial landscapes in Texas and is commonly referred to as 'crape murder' by folks who don't like the look of severely topped crape myrtles. I'd never argue with anyone's right to prune their own shrubs and trees as they see fit and I do my share of pruning my current shrubs, but I do understand the 'crape murder' viewpoint with regard to commercial plantings in Texas...like those around shopping centers, restaurants and office buildings. The landscape maintenance companies prune the poor things back to one or two or three trunks severely topped and when they bloom some of the poor things just look bizarre--big, fluffy flower heads on trunks with relatively little foliage. It can give almost a bonsai look to the plants and often the plants bend over towards the ground because the trunks can't support the big fluffy flowerheads...and that causes the crape myrtles to be pruned back even harder because they're obstructing sidewalks. If they'd just chosen the right size plant for those commercial plantings, they wouldn't be spending nearly as much time cutting them back. With the crape myrtles in your yard, I can understand why you prune them to maintain them at a certain height so they don't interfere with your enjoyment of all your roses. I always thought I'd plant crape myrtles here, and yet we've been here 11 years and I haven't planted a single one. One reason is that I don't want to plant anything that needs a lot of pruning, and the likely sites where I could put them are places where I'd have to go with naturally smaller ones or do a lot of pruning. You'd laugh at us...every single year we say "we need to plant some crape myrtles" and then we don't do it. I guess we either need to plant some, or just stop saying it. I love them when they're in bloom, but hate the pruning. I always pruned my crape myrtle back to just a few main trunks too back in Texas, or the monster would have taken over the entire front yard and also would have intruded into the next door neighbor's yard. I did sometimes dig up a sucker and transplant it elsewhere or give it away to someone who wanted one. I didn't do much other pruning, except to remove dead flowerheads when I could reach them. I also pruned up side shoots that came out at angles that interfered with our ability to walk in the yard, mow around it, etc. and that, of course, encouraged even more upright growth. I don't see nearly as much 'crape murder' occuring in southern OK as I see in north central Texas where it is epidemic in commercial plantings and I think that one thing they're trying to say on the website is to pick a crape myrtle that's the right size for the space available so you don't have to do excessive amounts of pruning. It can be really hard for homeowners to buy crape myrtles that are the right size if they don't do their research up front, because often crape myrtle plant tags don't always clearly state the mature size of the variety. I've noticed that in some stores, the tags only say something like 'lavender crape myrtle' or 'pink crape myrtle' and don't even give a variety name so you don't even know the mature height of what you're buying. The battle between those who like to prune their crape myrtles back hard and those think such pruning is 'crape murder' is pretty fierce in some areas. Personally, I think everyone should do what makes them happy in their own landscape! Dawn