"Help! My crape myrtle will not stand up straight! How do I fix it?" Are your Crape Myrtle trees looking a little floppy? Are they hitting you in the face? Maybe one is attacking the side of the house? Correct pruning of your Crape Myrtle in the winter will make a big difference in how it stands through other seasons. Drive through the Ole Miss campus this week. Notice how the larger Crape Myrtle trees have an overall upright mushroom shape, except for one along All American Dr. The photo to the right is  a picture of the Crape Myrtle on All American Dr. It really bothers me that this particular tree has "flopped." This tree may have been pruned incorrectly before we received it on campus. It has been a challenge over the years and we "cabled" it to support the weight. We will also pruned it to lighten the weight, but we did not severe prune it. The Crape Myrtle trees on campus do not receive a severe pruning in the winter. They receive a simple cleaning out of the small (less than finger width) branches. However, we remove the base sprouts, which are called suckers, anytime of the year. During the summer we will do a good bit of lifting of our lower hanging limbs as well. Whacking or severe pruning will lead to a quick and lush spring growth but it produces weak branches and makes the limbs flop downward. How do you fix the problem? Stop whacking or severe pruning your crape myrtle trees and simply begin cleaning out the smaller branches and the cross branches. To find out more, click here to watch a short video on pruning crape myrtles.