Beginner Gardening: my crape myrtle, 0 by marsue

marsue wrote:
I'm of the opinion that builders should never use crape/crepe myrtles as foundation plants but they continue to do so in our area. I believe that crape myrtles should be planted out away from a house where they will have plenty of room to grow and get as tall as they like. All you would have to do is keep the excess trunks removed as suggested above. In the past--at another house--my hubby and I have resorted to putting a chain around the crape myrtles which were planted up against the house and pulling them out with a tractor. We waited too long to do this to one of them and had to leave it for fear we would damage the foundation of the house because the roots were so large. At our present house, we have removed two crape myrtles from foundation beds and moved them out into the yard. We still have one crape myrtle in one of the beds but we may cut it down at the end of the growing season this fall. It is getting too big for our liking, as you can see from the photo. In addition to the crape myrtle, you can see the other plants which were in the flower bed when we bought the house--except for the purple sage.. We have removed 3 loropetalums from this same bed and put them elsewhere. You can imagine how crowded the bed would be if we had left them. We also need to move the two bushes against the brick which have pink blooms(can't think of the name of those right now). All the shrubs have grown considerably in the 18 mos. we have lived here and they are crowding one another.
Good luck, whatever you decide to do, jessnjus!