Crape Myrtles

It’s a bush, it’s a tree, it’s a flower, it’s… Crape Myrtle. There are many varieties of crape myrtle that range in height from 3 feet to more than 35 feet tall. Their flowers range in many colors including:

Lavender Pink

Light Red

Rose Pink

Magenta

Red

White

Purple

Many more colors…

To add further to the great variety of crape myrtles they flower anywhere from 70 days to 120 days (that’s a whopping 4 months of flowers coming in dramatic fashion). Furthermore, they have been bred to resist the disease powdery mildew and come in hardiness capabilities from “good” to “very good”. There is nearly any type of crape myrtle available that you would desire. Some of the primary categories include:

Dwarf – 5 feet or less

Semi Dwarf – 5 to 10 feet

Small Tree – 10 to 20 feet

Medium Tree – 20 to 30 feet

Large Tree – 30 feet or greater

Since there are so many different sizes of crape myrtles you can use the smaller ones for an ornamental in your garden, medium ones for hedges in your yard, and the taller ones like a tree. Depending on the variety, crape myrtles can be grown in USDA hardiness zones from 6 to 10. For those who live in zone 5, you can experiment with the perennial hardier variety and may have luck.

For superior flowering they require full sun from 6-8 hours per day. The good news about this is no need to worry about sheltering them from sunshine like many other types of flowers. Crape Myrtles are also very drought tolerant once they are established.. Doesn’t this seem like a good choice if your looking for something that is easy to grow and maintain.

Since there are so many different varieties of crape myrtles, find out your needs, then check out which ones will fit that plan. For example, if you live in a colder region you’ll obviously choose a crape myrtle that is very hardy. Some of the potential problems you may encounter with crape myrtles include:

Not enough sun

Powdery mildew

Too much nitrogen

Severe Pruning

Planted too deeply

Soil is wet or too dry

Aphids, Japanese & leaf beetles

There are issues with all plants; so when the conditions are good, you have good results. As with any plant adventure you are about to undertake, or with potential problems and questions, remember… there are a multitude of county extension agents and master gardeners available to help. It’s better to spend 10 minutes finding one in the yellow pages than to spend 10 hours trying to fix a mistake.