the best thing you can do is just leave it alone for a while. Too much care can be a bad things sometimes. If your soil is poor, I would suggest you get some compost and add that around the crape myrtles. A layer of mulch will also help. Give it a year to grow before you decide how you want it shaped.

Ok just wanted to post a follow up. I got my new cuttings and used my new products... the perlite and dip & grow. I got a ton of semi-hard wood cuttings. Cuttings: 4-8 inch range, striped all but a few leaves at the top, used a 50/50 mixture in 3 pots of my old sand and peat mix with the perlite, poked a hole with a dibber, dipped cut tip in rotting hormone, put my cuttings in the holes, moistened soil (not too wet) damp, kept in location that sees light, but not direct sunlight. (only bad thing was due to time issues I had to leave the cuttings in water longer then I planned before I prepared them and got them set up in pots) This time I left off the bags and instead misted in the morning before leaving for work and when I got home from work in the evening. The leaves browned on me still and I was about to give up and a few days ago 2 gave me some green leaves. So I have 2 out of about 30. I guess that is good considering I have no greenhouse and can't mist them more then 2x a day. The question now is leave them alone and kep doing the same thing and let them get stronger or try to take them out of the rooting pot and into a new pot of their own? I'm leaning towards leaving them till I know if any others are going to try and throw up some green. I worry about the delicate roots and trying to separate them out w/o damage. When, or do they even need to be transferred to a new pot with a different soil?

I think the "tube to get water to the roots" was a mistake. They did the same thing locally at the community college on advice of the contract landscaper -- lots of dead trees with 2 to 4 years. I suggest you abandon the tube and instead water from the "top" and allow the water to soak into the ground. Build a dike just outside what would (should?) be the rootball, then fill it 3 successive times at an individual watering (hope that makes sense). I'd also test to see if the trees are rooted in. To do so, grasp the trunk at about 3 feet from the ground -- in other words, bend your elbow at a right angle, then grasp the trunk. (Phew; this is easier when I talk to someone face-to-face!) Next, rock the trunk back and forth while watching the soil at the base of the tree. If the soil moves, the tree didn't root in. So that's also a guide for your watering dike. Make a dike at the edge of that wobbly rootball and a 2nd one a foot or so beyond it. Water within both dikes -- as said above, filling it at least 3 times. Later -- perhaps an hour or more -- stick a trowel into the ground. How deep did the water go? If not sufficiently deep, add more water. The soil between the two rings will remain moist for a long time because roots aren't there yet. The inner ring will need to be watered more often because the roots are there! To know for certain when to water again, check the soil with a finger or trowel.

Usually it is best to wait until fall to cut them back. I would also try to find out why the other two trunks died out. Give it a little plant food while you're investigating to help it out. You also might want to mulch around it if you haven't already, (but always pull the mulch a few inches away from the trunk.) These are hardy trees, they come in all sorts of colors and sizes, and most grow very fast. Some people cut them to within a foot of the ground like a bush and others let them grow into a tree, (as you are doing.) I always cut mine back in the fall, and it always comes back; bigger and better! I've also found that some trees start putting out lots of shoots near the base because they have been injured in some way. Its like a trees last-ditch effort at survival. There is a reason those two trunks died; try to find out why, and I would leave those other shoots alone until I knew for sure that the tree wasn't being threatened in some way that might kill the other, healthy, shoots. The first thing I do in a situation like this is take a very good look at the plant, its leaves, and surroundings. Are the leaves injured or discolored? Do they have spots, etc.? Do they fall off easily? Are there carpenter ants in the tree or an ant bed nearby? Is grass at the base or is a large tree nearby, (competing for water/nutrients.) If nothing is visible, then start thinking about the soil. Is it full of rocks/clay? Is it moist all the time? Dry and cracked? Very compacted, (hard?) Sometimes certain plants cannot grow along side one another as well and there is always the possibility that your soil needs to be amended. I hope this helps. It's where I would start. Good luck!