Advice on my new Crepe Mrytle

malik

Hello all, I recently found this wonderful crepe myrtle royal velvet at a nursery. It needs to be repotted and cutt down to a resonable size. These pics show the tree at different distances and where I am thinking of cutting it. Please excuse the pic that shows what the tree could look like when I am done. I got tired in photo shop and di a novice job.

Any advice would be great. now I know you should do only one or the other, cutting back severely or repotting, but i am thinking this myrtle can stand both, expecially if i don't remove too many roots. As you can see from the pic it is about 3 feet or so tall and i am only cutting the top foot away. That is not the final hieght, but I don't want to do too much if i am going to repot in the same season. Ok...so what do you think?

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Bonsaifreak

Malik:

I got a very similar crape myrtle a couple of months ago and hard pruned it to about what you are planning on doing on yours. It is coming back with a lot of energy but I am not planning on reducing the roots or repotting for another season. I would work on developing the trunk and main branches first before rushing to repot.

Jorge

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malik

Thanks for the tip. The only reason i want to repot so soon is because of the soil condition it is in now. Very water retentive and mushy.

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RyanFrye

Hi Malik,

I repot and top prune all in one season with crape myrtles. It doesn't bother them a bit. When it comes to root pruning I have literally taken a tree like yours, still in the nursery can, and cut all the major roots up to the trunk leaving a few feeder roots. At the same time cutting all branches off and leaving mostly a stump to start anew with.

Check out this thread I just started: http://forum.bonsaitalk.com/f15/mas...rtle-23245.html
I don't have a clue how old this tree is, but up until two years ago it spent the majority of its life in the ground. When I doug this up I cut the roots (were talking roots WAY bigger than most bonsai trunks) back to the trunk with very few if any feeder roots left on them. It has not skipped a beat.

The key to all this is TIMING. You need to do it before it starts leafing out and after all threats of freezing have passed.

Good luck with your tree it seems to have potential.

Ryan