a crime
By Morris Dean
"Crape," first of all, has the variant "crepe," and the full common name for Lagerstroemia is crape myrtle or crepe myrtle, "a genus of around 50 species of deciduous and evergreen trees and shrubs native to the Indian subcontinent, southeast Asia, northern Australia, and parts of Oceania, cultivated in warmer climates around the world. It is a member of the Lythraceae, which are also known as the loosestrife family. The genus is named after the Swedish merchant Magnus von Lagerström, who supplied Carolus Linnaeus with plants he collected. These flowering trees are beautifully colored and are often planted both privately and commercially. Popular cultivars used in modern landscaping include the bright red 'Dynamite,' the deep pink 'Pink Velour,' and the purple 'Twilight' crape myrtle, which also has a bark that changes colors." –Wikipedia
Simply put, it's cutting the top out. Crape myrtles are trees. Would you cut the top out of a pine tree, an oak, a maple, a dogwood tree? Cutting the top out of a crape destroys its natural shape.
How should you prune a crape?
If you want a short crape myrtle, visit your local garden center and request one. Some garden centers carry crapes that grow as short as only 18 inches. Dwarf crapes get only 3 feet tall, semi dwarf crapes 6 feet, medium crapes about 10 feet. Full crapes reach 15 to 25 feet. [Source: Classic Gardens]
Local [Alamance County, North Carolina] gardening expert Rett Davis has some solace for you if your spouse (a husband in the case he speaks to) has committed murder on one of your crapes:
I can see where the term “crape murder” may lead one to believe the tree will succumb from this pruning. However, the reverse will happen this spring. The tree will sprout out profusely with hundreds of vigorous growing shoots. In his eyes, your husband is vindicated and his life will be spared. This type of severe pruning on crape myrtles will cause what are called adventitious buds to break dormancy. The shoots from these buds grow rapidly. Although you will be elated the tree did not die, these shoots are weak and often break in windstorms and from the weight of birds. Flowering will be delayed as much as one month and flowering is reduced. When the trees lose their leaves in the fall, you can see the structure of the tree is not as attractive with all the numerous bare shoots around the pruning cuts. As a result, the tree gets hacked back again. The cycle of annual pruning has begun....The word "murder" was probably chosen because gardeners who hate to see crape myrtles defiled really hate it. But it might have been chosen also because it sounds similar to "myrtle" – especially when you remember that some East Asian speakers confuse the pronunciation of the letters el and ar. There's even a name for English so mispronounced: Engrish, "a slang term for the misuse or corruption of the English language by native speakers of some East Asian languages. The term itself relates to Japanese speakers' tendency to inadvertently substitute the English phonemes 'R' and 'L' for one another, because the Japanese language has one alveolar consonant in place for both. The related term 'wasei-eigo' refers to pseudo-anglicisms that have entered into everyday Japanese. While the term may refer to spoken English, it is more often used to describe written English. Engrish can be found in many places, including signs, menus, and advertisements. Terms such as Japanglish, Japlish, or Janglish for Japan, Konglish for Korea, and Chinglish for China are more specific terms for Engrish." –Wikipedia
So, let's stop the brutality done to crapes!
| Copyright © 2015 by Morris Dean |
In the larger picture of the number of murders around the world, using the term murder to describe over pruning a tree doesn't seem quiet right. Also, a little highbrow. I love to see the crepe myrtle in bloom---they are all over Mississippi, but they all get murdered in the fall.
ReplyDeleteI am premature in this next weeks question, but here I go. What does one do when dreams feel shortchanged except by sleeping. I know that some poetry I have written have come true for me. The poems exhausted me in the reality they became. I also know that tears are cleansing. The emotional support I received was just plain excellent.
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