With the shading having been removed it will grow back the other way over time

Thank you for the response. I wish I were a more patient person. LOL!

Will my crape straighten back up

==>>> in tree/shrub time.. it will adjust the canopy to the new light availability ... but that is going to take quite a number of years ... you either deal with that ... or get rid of it .... or murder it ... its not like you would be the first one to do that ... lol ... i dont recommend it ...

dont do this: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Crape+Myrtle+murder&t=ffcm&iax=images&ia=images

but that doesnt mean you couldnt do some guiding pruning .. but i would at least give it thru next spring.. just to see how the tree itself responds .... before i inflicted my personal aesthetic on it ...

if you just cant leave it be ... either murder it ... or get rid of it ... lifes too short to be irritated by some plant in your yard ... especially if its pissin you off real good ..

ken

How about tying a soft rope around some of the more flexible branches to pull them gently in the direction you want, in addition to some selective pruning (not topping) to encourage branching toward the bare side?

The plant has a genetic blueprint telling it to produce a certain crown shape, cutting part of that crown away is not going to make it grow differently in another, unpruned part of the tree.

Other than actually slowing how soon the full crown shape will be restored, because top size reduction reduces the total amount of size increase that occurs within a given period of time.

The problem was the shading, with the problem now removed the tree will resume growing normally.

Sometimes crape murder might be justified!

I have the same problem with a row of 20' tall purple crape myrtles. These trees developed a bad eccentricity as they grew toward available sunlight. The shading trees were removed last year and this year the crape myrtles bloomed prolifically. We've had heavy rains and the trunks are now leaning over badly due to the weight of the water being held in the blooms. One primary trunk broke.

I think heading back (murdering) these crape myrtles is appropriate to save them. I'm thinking I will make the cuts at varying heights so that the trees will look better as the new branches grow. I plan to thin the new branches down to two at each cut location.

(FYI, a neighbor's leaning crape myrtle uprooted and collapsed due to the heavy rains we've had lately.)