That's what crape myrtles do Scanmike, the roots live a long time and will continually send up shoots to reestablish growth above ground. After 5 years I've finally gotten down to nil most of the shoots coming up here from the numerous crapes the previous owner had planted (too close to fence, right next to house, etc.) and we removed. Now that I've gotten those under control, I put in a pink velour in a good location. lol Unless you want several trunks on/around your tree. snip off the shoots as they come up.

What I did this year was remove the lowest limbs. I did not do this for the bloom, I just like the look of the multiple trunks. The bark of a Crape is part of the attraction (color and bark naturally exfoliates). I would give the tree some time. I don't know if it's patience, I just have so many gardening interests that any particular tree or shrub might sulk for a few years w.o. me even noticing. Trees and shrubs are not said to be fully established for up to three years after planting! So too, It might be a soil thing. I did feed mine once in the season as it was pushing new growth, otherwise I do nothing special for them. Make sure you clear the weeds over the drop line and do mulch. (Summers here are usually wet enough to eliminate the need for any watering.) Boy oh boy, do the honeybees love their blossoms!

Angmoyer, I responded to your question about posting pictures in the tree forum, but wasn't sure you would see it there. My response should help you post your picture if you decide to, but Debndal is right on target and I doubt posting the picture will lead to an ID. In any case, here's what I wrote in response to your question about posting pictures in the Trees Forum: One of the easiest ways to provide your photo to be embedded into a post is to upload it onto an image hosting site such as Photobucket, Flickr, etc. That should be pretty straight forward, and the individual sites will give instructions on how to get your photos uploaded to their site when you sign up. Once your picture has been uploaded, find its web address by right clicking on the image and copying the image location. Some sites may even provide your image's address in a text box below the photo for your convenience. Let's say, as an example, that the address of the picture you want to post is http://somepicturesite.com/yourpicture.jpg To embed the picture into a post, use the command: img src="http://somepicturesite.com/yourpicture.jpg"> If your picture is too large to fit nicely into the text page, you can add a width attribute. The command with the width attribute would looks something like: img src="http://somepicturesite.com/yourpicture.jpg" width=600> Note that I had to use special characters to get the commands above to show up here without turning into pictures, but you can use them as shown (with the correct image web address, of course). And, BTW, you'll probably have better luck finding info on crape myrtles (Google searches, etc) if you spell crape with an a instead of an e. Almost all botanical gardens, university websites, and the Crape Myrtle Society spell it with an a.

I think it was an American holly? It had the shiny green leaves that would hurt like a mofo if you brushed up against it or tried to grab them...lol I regret to say that I took the holly completely out. I cut it down and it was dry. Everything I cut was dry as could be, no green layer. When I pulled it out of the soil the ground/soil was VERY wet. Like soggy wet. It does go up hill from where it was planted so I'm guess drainage is an issue in this area and why things don't grow. My wife tried planting a rose bush in the corner inside our fence and it died, my wife does VERY very good with roses. When inspecting and cutting the roots of the holly, they were soggy/and brown. Not great at all. Then I come out and find my neighbor took out his other holly. Such a shame too, it was nice at about 15 years old and very healthy looking. He just wants the front of his house more open so that's why he took it out. I put grass where the holly was and we ended up planting a Purple Rob Locust at the end of the yard where it will get full sun all the time, Should be a beautiful tree once it starts growing (it's already 8'ft now), plus it smells super nice!. Appreciate all the feedback. -Nigel