What happenig to my Crape Myrtles?!
apulliam_22
13 years ago
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ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
13 years agoRelated Discussions
At what point is Crape Myrtle Pruning, Crape Murder?
Comments (3)What you described about the multiple branches radiating around the trunk, just below where the trunk has been top cut, is a typical growth pattern for such drastic top pruning. All too often growers have already done such pruning to larger crape myrtles when they are shipped to the retail nurseries. Did your area get the recent days' hard freeze around the Easter holiday? If so the CM in question might have a lot of dead wood which needs to be pruned out. If such a freeze happened, watch the tree as its remaining buds leaf out again. Once the tree appears to be fully leafing out enough to look recovered from any winter or freeze damage; totally remove any trunks or branches which fail to releaf. Also from the trunks nearest your house, completely remove all the way to the trunk any branches in the canopy which you can clearly tell will grow to infringe on your roof. Throughout the following growing seasons feed the tree with slow release quality food, and after every week which fails to provide an inch of rain for the shrub, suppliment the tree with that much water. Over the summer let the tree bloom naturally, and do not prune off the resulting seeds in an effort to extend your bloom season to the first freeze of late fall or early winter. By letting the tree bloom by itself and by being patient if it seems to slow down in bloom presentation after the first bloom flush; the tree will be enabled to put forth effort into thickening its branches and developing its proper rooting perportions. After the tree goes dormant, depending on when temps drop low enough for that, consider the space which any branching from the trunks still invade your roof line. cut, at that time, each trunk, all the way down to the root ball, whose canopy clearly will grow to infringe on your roof line. Hopefully when you have accomplished all the above pruning you will end up with the best of either a one or three main leader trunks. Then, in early march of the next year, prune out again all brittle dead wood, brake off the remaining seed pods and their twigs. Then turn your focus onto any remaining radiating branches which are growing just beneath the previously described, chopped off trunks. Preserve only a flexible and clearly healthy branch which grows the most directly upward and toward the direction where you want the trunk to continue growing. Prune away any other branches which are growing around the trunk near the same level of the healthy upward growing branch you selected to retain. To repeat: the one branch you choose to keep growing off the end of such chopped off trunks should be the one out of the ratiating bunches which appeares to be growing most upright, and growing in the right direction for the retained branch to assume the role of developing into a continuation of the trunk. Hopefully each single branch you select to continue the remaining trunks are thick enough to survive the following winter freezes. If not you will need to wrap each and their tunks with cotton insulator wrap prior to each freeze. If the temps are forecast to drop down to a hard freeze than add bubble wrap around the cotton wrap. Just be sure to remove the plastic bubble wrap any time the temps rise back up above 33 F. degrees. The above advised action takes a lot of dilligent effort, so if you do not think the tree is worth the trouble, simply remove it, grind the stump and main roots and purchase a 10 to 15 gallon sized, 25 to 30 feet potential height grower Crape Myrtle which has not also already been such drastically top pruned-down by the grower. With any such new CM tree you plant in the area, make certain to plant it far enough from the house to prevent roof damage, and to also prune train it properly each year just as you first described above....See MoreWhy is my crape/crepe myrtle have pink blooms & white blooms?
Comments (19)Definately do cut out at the base, all trunks in your CM that are blooming pink. Then be certain to pinch off any new growth that the roots of those cut off branches try to keep growing. If you keep the new growth pinched off then only those roots should suffer,and the white blooming branches should begin to experience an advantage, which helps them to prosper more. Unless it is just the lighting cast on the day you took that photo of the pink blooms, the pink blooming trunks might be a Biloxi Crape Myrtle. Those bubblegum pink blooms, in my opinion are a much nicer sight than some of the more pale easily washed out pinks that some CMs produce. Anyway I only tell you this to let your know that if you do like that particular pink color and would like to have a CM growing someplace else with that color, Than simply order or find at some local nursery a Biloxi Crape Myrtle that is already blooming and that you can confirm it really is a Biloxi Crape Myrtle....See MoreBlack 'stuff' on my Crape Myrtles
Comments (4)Yes, you just about have to have sooty mold. It is a mold that grows on the excretions from insects. Any time you see that on any bushes, you should look closer because you have some sort of insect problem. It can be scales, but in this case, it is probably aphids. It is common for large plants even in the wholesale nurseries to get black because of this mold, but it usually happens in another month or two. As others have said, it doesn't kill the plant but it looks ugly. I would spray the plants with something like Malathion, or any other general purpose insecticide to get rid of the aphids. If we had lots of rain, the mold would then wash off in a few weeks. An old remedy is to mix about 4 tablespoons of baking soda per gallon of water, and that is supposed to take out the mold in less than a week....See MoreWhy do my crape myrtles look like this?
Comments (7)I take it that the pruning occurred recently relative to the taking of the picture ....? ... in which case there would still be a lot of growth to be forthcoming from the top of the tree. It is normal for crapes to send up some more new growth emanating from the base. Pruning the top encourages growth to come from elsewhere, too, in addition to growth that will return from the top. Usually, this stabilizes over a period of time. If some kind of major damage occurred to the top (... freezing?), that would encourage a whole lot growth to come from elsewhere, mainly the base. I take it that these pictures are (or the pruning was) from some time earlier as it would be very late to be hard pruning crapes. I don't know how picky you are about the structural form of the trunk system. I see that you have the original narrow, multi-trunk tree form (as it comes from the grower), and then cut it at eyeball height for a period, causing trunk branching above that height. Now, you're cutting at the 8' height. The end result gives some knobbiness to the trunks. Personally, I prefer that they create a cleaner vase (V) shape from the ground up, and that the branching is random and natural (as opposed to our being able to clearly tell where cuts were made for a period of time. IMO, all the cutting should occur only at the final top.) If you decide to "clean it up" this can be done any year just prior to new growth. Cut the whole thing to the ground and let it regrow, without any more pruning until the end of summer, when selection of trunks and removal of lower side branches can occur. (It would be too late to do this now.) Here's an example of a rejuvenated crape... (Sorry about background clutter.) (TECO Electric did the original trimming to ground. Free of charge! :-)...See Moreapulliam_22
13 years agobrandon7 TN_zone7
13 years agoapulliam_22
13 years agobrandon7 TN_zone7
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13 years agorhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
13 years agoapulliam_22
13 years ago
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