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.

Since it might not be clear to you, what Dave is saying is that CM's flower on the ends of the growth from this year - one of the reasons people get away with, and perpetuate the "crape murder' which is what you get told NOT TO DO by members of GW - which is why he suggests waiting until after flowering or doing your trimming in spring so as not to lose this summer's flowers. You might by now be able to see flower buds forming at the branch tips and be able to decide if you want to remove the most wayward branches even so, losing the flowers. If the branches aren't too much in the way, my inclination would be to wait 'til they flower and then deal with them. IF they ARE in the way, shorten them back until they aren't, or, if you want a tree-form, take them off at the trunk. As Esh Ga says, you can grow either a tree-form or a bush-form CM. Some of the newer, dwarf cultivars can, and should, be grown as bushes and look very nice. If you know, and tell us what cultivar you have, you can get more directed advice as to whether to trim up the trunk, or leave it as a bush. In any case, you can grow most cultivars as bushes and/or in pots for several years, so there is no urgency, other than your expectations of what you want this CM to look like. If it isn't one of the dwarf cultivars, then eventually it may outgrow the pot and the space on your deck, and need to be planted in the ground. For now, though, it looks to be quite happy and healthy where it is.

dulcie2003, I don't know much about crepe myrtles (my zone is way colder than yours) but I do know that reds (the pix I googled show dynamite as a really vibrant lucious red) can be somewhat difficult to color match. I would go with small dark green shrubs and white annuals under/or around/or near the tree. (Will gardenias grow there? - if so that would be a good possibility - a 2 for 1 deal). I would then try to echo the red somewhere else in the yard (maybe pots on the porch) where a perfect match doesn't matter as much. The red crepe myrtle and the echoing reds should really pop well against your neutral house background and give it some punch, and still look very elegant. If the crepe myrtles have and off season (no flowers) you could change out the annuals or add a few perennials in another color, or soften down the red to a pink shade which would also look great with your house color.

you dont define the plant you are calling a smoke bush ... amybe the TX smoke bush is different than the MI smoke bush.. of which i am totally blanking on the name.. oh.. Cotinus coggygria .... i had one.. that grew to the gutters of the house... and 5 feet beyond ... before i cut it to 6 inches.. and 2 years latter.. it was back up to the gutters .. a rather aggressive plant that doesnt sound like something that will fit nicely .. UNDER some other plant ... ken