Let’s talk about Crape Myrtles.
Kathy Brooks
Who doesn’t love their vibrant colors during the hottest part of the summer? Well, actually there are those who don’t, but most people find them invaluable as accents and screens for their landscape. With color choices from delicate pinks and lavenders to fiery new reds, there is a Crape Myrtle for almost every situation.
First let’s clear up one thing: a Crape Myrtle is a shrub, not a tree. Even those huge old 30 ft. specimens are just shrubs with a shrub-type root system. This is why we can plant them close to our houses and walkways without too much risk of damage, unlike a tree, which can cause extensive damage to concrete.
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Showing posts with label crape myrtle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crape myrtle. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
Garden Detective: Crape myrtles, Eureka lemons - Sacramento Living - Sacramento Food and Wine, Home, Health | Sacramento Bee
Gardening Questions answered by the Garden Detective from the Sacramento Bee:
Garden Detective: Crape myrtles, Eureka lemons - Sacramento Living - Sacramento Food and Wine, Home, Health Sacramento Bee
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Garden Detective: Crape myrtles, Eureka lemons - Sacramento Living - Sacramento Food and Wine, Home, Health Sacramento Bee
Posted using ShareThis
Monday, June 29, 2009
Keep your crape myrtles in shape
The crape myrtles have just started blooming around the Chattanooga area. Crape myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica x L. fauriei) was introduced to the Southern United States more than 150 years ago. It is sometimes called the "lilac of the South." They had their geographic origins in China, Japan and other parts of Southeast Asia. It has been cultivated as an ornamental for centuries.
Few trees compare with the flower color and quality of the crape myrtle at a time of year when it's scorching hot in the South. Even if a severe winter kills most of the top growth -- like it did two years ago in our area -- the crape myrtle is capable of growing back in a short time.
Colorful crapes
The individual flowers generally have six ruffled petals. They resemble crinkled crepe paper, so many people call them crepe myrtles. There are five basic colors: red, pink, white, lavender and purple. Some cultivars have picotee flowers (pink petals with white borders).
The other outstanding feature is the bark. It is smooth and sinewy. The gray to brown bark peels away gradually and exposes shades of cinnamon brown and green.
The lower branches are often thinned to show off the trunk form and color. The foliage is dark green, changing in fall to yellows, oranges and reds.
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Few trees compare with the flower color and quality of the crape myrtle at a time of year when it's scorching hot in the South. Even if a severe winter kills most of the top growth -- like it did two years ago in our area -- the crape myrtle is capable of growing back in a short time.
Colorful crapes
The individual flowers generally have six ruffled petals. They resemble crinkled crepe paper, so many people call them crepe myrtles. There are five basic colors: red, pink, white, lavender and purple. Some cultivars have picotee flowers (pink petals with white borders).
The other outstanding feature is the bark. It is smooth and sinewy. The gray to brown bark peels away gradually and exposes shades of cinnamon brown and green.
The lower branches are often thinned to show off the trunk form and color. The foliage is dark green, changing in fall to yellows, oranges and reds.
Read more:
Gardenmagik , Pruning Crape Myrtles, Back to the Garden
The correct way to prune Crape Myrtles. Open up the center and make the tree look taller.
Crape Myrtle Craze in McKinney features plants for sale, bus tour and symposium
By KARA KUNKEL / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning NewsKara Kunkel is a Dallas freelance writer.
Photos by EVANS CAGLAGE/DMN
Crape myrtles, such as 'Acoma', are popular throughout North Texas for their beauty and durability. "
In North Texas, if you give a crape myrtle enough sunshine and adequate care, it's hard to go wrong. Still, these vividly blooming shrubs and small trees, a staple of Southern landscapes, often don't get the respect they deserve, according to a group of crape myrtle devotees in McKinney.
McKinney's annual Crape Myrtle Craze on Saturday is intended to show North Texans the wide range of the summer bloomer's trees and shrubs, and offer for sale some of the hard-to-find varieties. The event, organized by the Crape Myrtle Trails of McKinney Foundation, also features a symposium and bus tours of the city's 14 miles of crape myrtle plantings.
McKinney isn't the only city in the nation or the state that has adopted the crape myrtle as a cause, but it hopes to gain distinction. The foundation aims to beautify the city with thousands of crape myrtles and to create a park where every known variety would be planted and studied.
In the garden
Janet Carson is a horticulture specialist for the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service. Write to her at P.O. Box 391, Little Rock, Ark. 72203; or e-mail her at
jcarson@arkansasonline.com
Q. Does it injure the crape myrtles to cut the suckers that grow around the base of the plant? Ours are just coming into bloom, but whoever pruned them before we bought the house had let a lot grow out at ground level. Is there an office in the area that we could come by and pick up info about the local growing tips? We live in Little Rock.
A. It does not hurt to remove the suckers at the base of the crape myrtle; in fact, it is advisable to do so. We would not recommend trying to use an herbicide to kill them, since many are attached to the mother plant, but clipping them at the soil line is a great idea. If allowed to grow, they would give your tree a more bushy look and take away from its appearance. Some varieties of crape myrtles are more prone to suckers than others, but just pay attention. As to a local source of information, every county has a local county extension office where publications are available. In Pulaski County it is at 2901 W. Roosevelt Road. The county offices are also where you can take soil samples and plant samples to be diagnosed. If you are just looking for printed information, there is plenty of that at our home and garden Web site at www.arhomeandgarden.org , or go to our main Web page www.uaex.edu and click on publications and you can print your own publications at home.
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jcarson@arkansasonline.com
Q. Does it injure the crape myrtles to cut the suckers that grow around the base of the plant? Ours are just coming into bloom, but whoever pruned them before we bought the house had let a lot grow out at ground level. Is there an office in the area that we could come by and pick up info about the local growing tips? We live in Little Rock.
A. It does not hurt to remove the suckers at the base of the crape myrtle; in fact, it is advisable to do so. We would not recommend trying to use an herbicide to kill them, since many are attached to the mother plant, but clipping them at the soil line is a great idea. If allowed to grow, they would give your tree a more bushy look and take away from its appearance. Some varieties of crape myrtles are more prone to suckers than others, but just pay attention. As to a local source of information, every county has a local county extension office where publications are available. In Pulaski County it is at 2901 W. Roosevelt Road. The county offices are also where you can take soil samples and plant samples to be diagnosed. If you are just looking for printed information, there is plenty of that at our home and garden Web site at www.arhomeandgarden.org , or go to our main Web page www.uaex.edu and click on publications and you can print your own publications at home.
Read more:
Plant of the Day - Lagerstroemia (Crape Myrtle)
LagerstroemiaFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Myrtales
Family: Lythraceae
Genus: Lagerstroemia Linnaeus
Species: See text
Lagerstroemia (pronounced /ˌleɪɡərˈstriːmiə/),[1] commonly known as Crape-myrtle,[2] is a genus of around 50 species of deciduous and evergreen trees and shrubs native to the Indian subcontinent, southeast Asia, northern Australia and parts of Oceania. It is a member of the Lythraceae, which is also known as the Loosestrife family.
While various species and cultivars are able to fill a wide variety of landscape needs, crape-myrtles are chiefly famous for their colorful and long-lasting flowers. Most species of Lagerstroemia have sinewy, fluted stems and branches with a mottled appearance that arises from having bark that sheds throughout the year. The leaves are opposite, simple, with entire margins, and vary from 5-20 cm (2-8 in). While all species are woody in nature, they can range in height from over 100 feet to under one foot; most, however are small to medium multiple-trunked trees and shrubs. The leaves of temperate species provide autumn colour.
Flowers are borne in summer and autumn in panicles of crinkled flowers with a crepe-like texture. Colours vary from deep purple to red to white, with almost every shade in between. Although no blue-flowered varieties exist, it is toward the blue end of the spectrum that the flowers trend, with no sight of orange or yellow except in stamens and pistils. The fruit is a capsule, green and succulent at first, then ripening to dark brown or black dryness. It splits along six or seven lines, producing teeth much like those of the calyx, and releases numerous small winged seeds.
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