it was suggested to me.. in regard to hosta.. that by the time the flower is there.. the energy for the seed has already been spent ... the hormones triggering it all ...

that said.. i used to cut flowers off various plants the first year completely.. under your logic ... not even waiting for the seeds ....

in hindsight.. i doubt it really got me anywhere.. lol ...

ken

I never recommend deadheading crapemyrtles. The seed pods add an ornamental feature to the winter garden and fall off as soon as the new growth emerges is the spring. Yes, deadheading just as the flowers fade will probably trigger a second flush of growth, but at sacrifice to the plant's carbohydrate reserves.

I'd advise that you not deadhead, which does go against conventional wisdom for annuals and herbacous perennials. That rule just doesn't transfer to woody plants.

I'm with rhizo! Also, if you let them grow, you'd need a ladder to do it...I never deadhead mine.

Thanks! I really don't need a 2nd round of bloom.

They don't reseed like crazy, do they? This is the hybrid 'Dynamite', not a species.

I got rid of the Cercis occidentalis in part because they reseeded like mad and I was pulling dozens of seedlings just about daily.

Nope they do not. A few every now and then. I use drip irrigation which obviously cuts down on easy of seed germination, but even in overhead-irrigated spots I don't think that you need to worry much. Odd - my C. occidentalis have never reseeded. The C. chinensis, however....

I'm not sure how much rebloom deadheading would cause in crapes (I'm sure probably some, but just don't know the degree). The technique of removing blooms at an early stage before seed-set absolutely can be highly beneficial in rechanneling energy in many woody plants, just ask an orchardist. This is pretty common practice with newly planted fruit trees.

I can't really imagine the need for this, though, with crapes, as they are fast growers anyway. You probably wouldn't want them to grow any faster that they already do, because it would likely just result in more floppiness.

In a marginal climate for crape myrtles it's a different question. Here in Portland, OR area, instead of blooming early in the summer like I believe they do in the south, it generally takes most of the summer for them to get enough hot weather to develop flowers, and in a cool summer they may not bloom much. So there's no question of trying to get them to rebloom, you just hope you get one bloom out of them. So here the question is when they are through blooming in Sept or so does it help them conserve energy for the winter by deadheading them and getting them to avoid putting energy into berry production? Trying to extrapolate from the other comments it makes me feel it may not be a good idea.

Lance, though this is a very old thread you've resurrected, I'll comment. It's not the heat that triggers blooming in the crape myrtles but plentiful sunlight. That lack of long, sunny days is likely the limiting factor in Portland!