I'm new to Texas and new to gardening and have a question: We have these trees in our front yard (see photo) but we don't know what they are.

In summer they had pink blooms that were quite fragrant. Now they are completely bare, not a single leaf remaining, only a few small black and dried balls that used to be the fruit, I assume. When we moved here, it seemed that these trees, along with the rest of the yard, had been largely neglected and left to their own devices. They already had some dry branches without leaves, even in summer.

Do I need to prune these trees before spring comes? If so, how much do I need to cut them back? I've never done this before and I don't want to damage the tree.

that further one.. if i couldnt see to back out of the drive doing my batmobile departure.. it would have been gone.. before that moving truck left ... be done with it ...

i mean really.. just run over one kid on a bike.. and watch how p.o.'d the new neighbors get ... they usually have little sense of humor about such ...

the closer.. i would remove those two lower sprigs for sure.. and the first time i parked there and i couldnt get my car door open.. i would crawl across the seat.. open the garage.. and cut that one down too.. [if i werent so irritated.. i jsut didnt back up and run the thing over ... [but thats more of a truck thing.. lol]

what rocket scientist planted these things.. lol.. oh yeah.. the ones that just left

too much work for me to move them.. but if you want the exercise.... it can probably be done ... with a little guidance from us ...

ken

ps: its more of a flowering shrub pruned into tree shape.. in my use of words ....

I love the Voldemort/dementor comments. This time I'm glad Ken beat me to the comment (his was funnier).

I agree with the above comments, minus Ken's horti-violence. I can almost see the makings of a new video game with Ken, his trunk, and a bunch of virtual tree targets.

Please do minimal pruning on those crapes. Yes, take the bottom sprouts off, that's really about all you need to do.

If you follow the butchery done by most landscapers and commit "crape murder", you'll be sorry, it will never look like a normal tree again, and it will form lumps at the cut sites.

Well, it's significantly less neglected now since we put some work into it. We weeded and dug out the overgrown rocks that used to form a border around the trees a long time ago, and put new mulch down. The pic shows them from another angle after we fixed them up a bit.
Looks like we'll need to get rid of those thin sprigs coming out the side at the very least.

Thanks for all of your advice for this dementor-loving gardening-newbie ;-)

this camera angle doesnt make them seem anything like the first.. go figure ...

there is one long branch.. heading right for the garage corner ... i would get that out ...

and they ought to fear me.. if they ever poke me getting out of the car ... a little guidance pruning should alleviate that threat..

congrats on the new house.. hit us with some more posts.. we are winter bored right now ...

ken