Nice pictures! I don't trim my crape myrtles either and think they are beautiful in their natural state.

Kate

If people only knew how nice they are when you leave them alone maybe they would quit trimming them.

Crepe myrtles - I agree! I'd never seen that style of pruning ("beheading") until moving to LA (lower AL) from OH. It's sooooo ugly! My Mom has half a dozen of these at her house and we've done nothing but keep them shaped (5 mins of snipping every-other year.) Seems they top-out at about 15 feet and they are beautiful little trees that bloom profusely every year and never make suckers. What is the thought process behind the beheading?

Love your sunflowers, starryrider! Nice patch.

I think everyone hacks them because everyone else hacks them. No one knows to leave them alone and they are beautiful

I 'think' the yellow flowers are rudbeckia. They grew up from a pack of wild flower seeds I planted.

Cool! What is the (orange?) flower next to the rudbeckia?

That is my blood lily just starting to pop open
I have 5 blooms now

I think some how they thought pruning them would help them get through hurricanes, like the way they prune palms with that stupid hurricane cut that actually harms the palms.