Looking soon for any color Myrtles rooted.
Kathy
Wanted: Crape Myrtles
Do you have a microclimate or are you putting them in pots?
The biggest most beautiful CM I had were in roanoke virginia. Differance is...you just dont cut them way back like you do in FL. I was completely taken by surprise that they grew up there....but they did. We had snow and ice every winter..they can take it.
Wow I am truly surprised. Didn't know they could take that much cold. Learn something new on this forum every day.
i would have argued against it myself, if I did not live with them. Their biggest enemy I found was ice forming on the stems and having them break. They do take longer to grow back and dont get as bushy. After the first year of a florida prune...i never touched them again. Took them about two years to get back to where i should have left them alone. Flowers stay on longer up their as well. Going out to scout around my trees for some 'volunteers' for s'mom.
I have two Crape Myrtles here in Athens Ohio (zone 6a, barely). One tends to die back to the ground when the winter is more like Zone 5a; the other "Tonto" has done very well for 3 years now.
I do like to mulch the roots in the Fall, but both are fairly exposed. One is one a North facing hill and the other (Tonto) in partially shaded in a West facing garden.
Best of luck.
ROX
They did great for me and I'm further south than Roanoke. I love them. My favorite tree or shrub. I dug up almost every one I had, even 15 ft trees. I will put them in pots now until May if anyone has them to share.
Kathy
I have always thought the C Myrtle's are much prettier and more vivid coloration up north. I have a few in my yard and we chain saw them heavily in the fall .... they come back looking a lot nicer in spring! Got this idea from watching the parks and grounds folks doing it on the CM's on the roadways .... I couldn't get over how much nicer they always looked than the ones in my yard!
Lin
My inlaws grew CM's in New Jersey. They leaf out very late but then they take off and bloom very well.
I hate the crape murder when they are cut way back, leaving big gnarly knuckles....Parks and golf courses are starting to get away from that look now, here. I prune mine back to where the branch is about as big around as my little finger, in February - after the birds have a chance to eat the seeds, and that way they bloom wonderfully, and continue to grow into a larger tree. I now have some in the back yard that are around 30 feet tall, multitunked, with beautful bare trunks. Of course, I can't prune the tips anymore, but they are beautiful trees. I simply keep them limbed up now.
And I was surprised that they did well in zone 6A. I used to live in Z7 (near OKC) and they were all lost one bad winter. But we have been experiencing some awfully warm winters lately. If we get another bad one, my yard is toast!!
I would be glad to share seedlings later, when I know they are alive and well. D-mail me if you want them. There are always some around. LOL
CJ
I could get seeds from a lot of trees but how do you get them to germinate???? Also my pink crapemyrtle has little plants that come up around the mother plant mostly bright pink if you want some of those. Fran
I have lavender CM's planted all along the front of my yard along the road. I think they are really pretty. They are one of the few things that bloom when it is hot mid summer. I did have a problem with aphids last year. I think it was from the stress of little water. It was a very dry summer. Gotta start sprying early this year.
Kathy, Our neighborhood has a place where we can drop off yard waste. The first winter I lived in this home, 2001, I was dropping off some brush and I noticed someone else had pruned their Crape Myrtles; there were plenty of sticks just sitting there. I picked a few good ones and came home and stuck them in containers and this is one of those "sticks" today. It is hard to see because it is dormant right now but for a 5 year old tree I think it is pretty good. It is at least 12' tall, maybe more.
That's huge! I didn't know they rooted that well. I have some corkscrew willow that grows like made but haven't tried my myrtles. I need STICKS!
kathy
I've got 2 in 4 inch pots that I forgot I had .Kinda pinkish red purplish color.Grew them from seed so the real color should be a surprise. Dormat right now So perfect for shipping. Don
Donnalaclair ,,, how did you get the seed to come up (Germinate)? ^Thanks. Fran
as soon as the seeds formed on branchs in the little clusters I kept watch untill they seemed like they were going to open and I picked a few and opened them up removed the seeds which were nice and brown and let them dry out for a few days on a plate on the counter and then group planted them in one gallon plastic pots and set them in shade under my big oak tree and in a week or maybe it was two they sprouted and then I harvested a bunch more seeds from the same crape and repeated and had 3 gallon pots full of seedlings.After about 2 months I transplanted to 4 inch pots and then started giving them and trading them. I think the secret to getting the seeds is to gettem before the birds beat you too them.I noticed when the little seeds pods first start to open the birds make a bee line to that crape .
This message was edited Feb 11, 2007 10:30 AM
i have some and i sent you a dmail. barb
I read somewhere that Crape Myrtle blooms on new wood, so that's why we HEAVILY prune ours each year! Ours seem to have much more vivid bloom color now that we prune like that. I just have the pink ones, but am looking for one of the Dark Red Color. I remember a year or so ago finding a website some place selling dwarf ones and they showed one in a hanging basket! It was real pretty. Now, I can't remember who it was selling them! I guess I need to do a google search! If any of y'all know of a source that sells the dark red flowered ones, I hope you will post here with the name!
Recently I attended a seminar on the subject of the new wood and blooming. What the experts said was that at one time that was the thinking and that is why so many landscapers started committing crape murder. Today the theory is leave them grow naturally and they will be healthier and bloom more in the long run. When you do prune heavily you run the risk of leaving the plant suseptible to diseases and insects beacuse the new wood is weaker.
However, they will bloom heavier and for a longer period if you routinely remove the seeds; I just snip off the tips of branches after they bloom.
I think this is a great site for choosing the right CM for the right place. Picking them for the right size and color to start with saves a lot of work down the road.
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/plantanswers/trees/crapemyrtle/crape_myrtle_varieties.html
Fran, I wintersowed some CM seeds I picked up off the ground outside a friend's house -- not even sure how long they had been off the tree. I have about 20 little seedlings germinated as of this afternoon... I couldn't believe it because I didn't really expect them to go at all. So, wintersowing really worked on those seeds I had.
(I also wintersowed some of the seeds I got from you for SASBE... so far so good!)