??? Re: White Chocolate, Rhapsody in Pink Crape Myrtles

These two crape myrtles caught my eye the other day, I have space for a small tree, in full sun. Rhapsody in pink is beautifully contrasted in color; it is also a very upright grower, so may be it would work better as a shrub and not trained as a tree???

I know nothing about Crape myrtles; I really did not like them so much until I saw these two. Has anyone grown either of these with 1-3 main trunks??? Can you post pictures????

Also, if Rhapsody, or another upright growth myrtle was to be grown as a shrub, how narrow could it be kept?

We have crape myrtles all over the place around here and I have never seen one as a shrub. It will end up a tree unless you cut it in half every year, they grow very fast. 3 or 4 trunks seems the normal but you can grow it into a one trunk tree.

Back to I don't know how or why you would want to keep this as a shrub.

Give this a try. http://www.clemson.edu/crepemyrtle/

There are some cultivars that can be kept as shrubs, look up info on the cultivars and find out what their mature size is, ones that have a full grown size of 8' or less can probably be kept as shrubs (I know there are ones that are grown as shrubs, several people in my old neighborhood had them). But the ones that get 10-15' are probably going to tend to be more treelike (although most of the tree ones I've seen will send up shoots from the base pretty regularly, so if you want to keep them looking like a nice tree you'll have to prune those out every year.

I 'm sorry, I did not mean to suggest that I would prefer to keep them as a shrubs . I would keep it as a tree: I was wondering if the ones that grow more rounded as the white chocolate does make a more natural looking tree than the ones that grow more upright, like the rhapsody.

Round is a pruning issue. End of the year prune them to the shape you want. Simply as that. If you mean more compact the problem there is people over pruning them. Also called crape murder. LOL. Depending on what size you want they can all be pruned into a tree. Are you looking for it to be one trunk? That's easy enough to do with a young one.

I have decided that a crape myrtle will ot look right where I wanted to pout it: in a woodland setting. So, If I have enough sun, I can put one near my deck. I would probably keep three to four trunks.

ANYBODY KNOW IF THE DWARF CRAPE MYRTLES DO WELL ALONG THE COAST IN SAN DIEGO CALIFORNIA? I'M LOOKING FOR SOMETHING 10FR TALL BUT OPEN BRANCHED AND "SEXY". IT HAS GOT TO BE DROUGHT TOLERANT... ANY IDEAS FROM YOU BRIGHT PEOPLE OUT THERE?

Dwarf crape myrtles aren't 10 ft tall, I think you'll want one of the regular ones. I can't think of any reason why they wouldn't do well in San Diego, and I think they're reasonably drought tolerant once established, I see them used all the time around here as street trees in the middle of median strips, etc where they don't get a ton of water. If you're right on the ocean and get wind and salt spray then they may not work, but anywhere a little inland they should be fine. I don't know exactly what you're looking for when you say open branched and sexy, but crapes tend to have denser branches so it may not have the open look you want.

Crape myrtles have a beautiful vase shape quite naturally. Pick one that gets to the size you want it rather than trying to prune it for size. It is very easy to pick out a few main trunks. Prune any additional undesired stems out at the ground level. You may also want to limb it up judiciously, although that isn't necessary. Whatever you do, please, please, please avoid "crape murder," the awful and discredited, yet inexplicably still widely practiced hideous topping and drastic pruning of these otherwise lovely trees/shrubs.

No more Crape Murder! http://plantanswers.tamu.edu/publications/stopthecrape.html