Neil Sperry's Mailbag

DEAR NEIL: Is it acceptable to trim big limbs off crape myrtles, peaches, plums and figs?

Partly yes, partly no. Ideally, you will not do much pruning to figs. You need to plant them where they will have ample room to grow and develop, then you should leave them alone. If you prune figs very much you will get strong vegetative regrowth at the expense of flowering and fruiting.

Basically, the same thing applies to crape myrtles. You should never use pruning as a means of height control. In fact, crape myrtle experts will tell you that topping crape myrtles is the single worst thing that gardeners do to their plants. Choose a variety that grows to the height you want, then leave it alone. Of course, with both figs and crape myrtles, you can remove errant branches that ruin the plants' natural forms. Finally, peaches and plums should be pruned in January or early February every year to remove strongly vertical shoots. Your goal with them is to have bowl-shaped trees that are 14 to 16 feet wide but only 8 or 10 feet tall.

That allows the sun to reach the ripening fruit, and it keeps that fruit at a manageable height so that you can harvest most of it from the ground.


DEAR NEIL: What would cause ugly growths on the lower branches of an oak tree? They look like corky masses with worm holes in them. Will they hurt the tree?

Those sound like insect galls. Each species of oak has its own inherent types of galls. The adult insect flies by and stings the twigs and branches. She lays her eggs in the process, and the gall you see is the plant's reaction to the sting. There is nothing you can do to control them galls. The good news is that they, on their own, do nothing to harm the tree. Just ignore them.


DEAR NEIL: You referred to an almond-colored worm recently. Are you familiar with asps? They have a poisonous bite that looks like teeth marks.

Entomologists refer to those larvae as "puss caterpillars," but most Texas gardeners know them as asps as you referenced. They're the immature form of a non-descript moth, and they're common on a variety of landscape and garden plants at certain times of the year. Telltale identifiers for them are their peaked back (not completely round) and their tapered shape. It's among the tan bristles that you'll find those stinging hairs that contain the painful venom. General rule of thumb: teach your children not to handle caterpillars. You never know when they'll run into one of the several types that sting.

Neil Sperry
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