The canopy may be able to be thickened to some degree by proper pruning (not crape murder!), but other factors are probably even more important. Genetics, amount of light/shade, soil, plant maturity, and other factors could be causing the differences you are seeing. The best crapes I have seen are ones where the number of trunks were limited to three or four, but other pruning was limited to removing dead or rubbing branches. There is a small grove of crapes down the road that look perfect, very full and just like crape myrtles are supposed to look. Just across the road, another place has the same type of crapes that have been butchered. They look terrible, like something that should be in a book about how not to prune this type of tree. It's hard to believe how poorly the more "cared for" ones look.

I have a question. One of my seedlings had the top broken off a few weeks ago, by a #@&@&!*(*($ squirrel that has a death wish. The topmost lateral branch (and only branch it had at the time, in fact) has continued growing much longer, and has somewhat turned more upright, as if trying to make a new leader. At the same time, several new shoots are starting in the axils of the needles along the stem, including one right next to the lateral branch that's now turning upward. Should I take that branch that's already trying to become the new leader, and stake it straight up? It's flexible enough to do so. Or - should I just let it go for a while and see what happens? I actually pushed a bamboo stake in the pot this morning but stopped short of trying to tie it straight.

Beng, Initially, I thought it may be Taxodium mucronatum. I asked around. A few thought it looked like T. mucronatum. A director of university arboretum liked its form and asked for cones. He noted that the size of seeds fall in between mucronatum and distichum. The key difference between these two species is that mucronatum stays green about a month longer (starts growth early and can retain green foliage significantly longer into late fall/early winter. Even most of winter if it is mild enough. However, this one is drops its foliage at the same time as other bald cypress trees so who knows? I wish I could find out where it came from. I haven't seen any bald cypress like that.

Yes it's the same one in the first pic, and I'm guilty of chopping on it. The update pic was taken by me sitting on the ground and the first pic I was standing, so I didn't go as topiary on it as it may look. Despite previous advice, this spring I decided to address the knot of branches that is visible on the lower left of the first pic. There were 4 branches all originating from the same spot. I thought that I would take out half, so in a couple of years the wound would not be so major when I did some more pruning. Well, half quickly became all, then the other one on the front looked weird and I did have the saw in my hand... So, now it has 3ft of trunk before it branches. The tree has probably tripled in volume, except the top 4 feet refused to do much more than leaf out. It actually got shorter, as the leader got a bit floppy. I know I got a crappy big box discount tree. I'm a sucker for discount plants, but I should have maybe not put one in the VIP spot in my front yard. I have warmed up to the idea of having an oddball DR. I have also seen a few huge low branched spreading bald cypress that were shaped almost like a live oak and they were awesome. This tree had lots of rain for most of the growing season, also the under planting is Sabal minor palms (they love water too). I'll lay off the trimming and see what this beast can turn into.