Is its planting bed well draining; if not, improve the drainage.

Did you experience drought in 2005 and 2006, or experience March warm-ups which caused the Acoma to break dormancy and a few weeks later experience Easter or prior freezes?

The reason I mention this last question, relates to the fact that the Acoma's yearly growth is fairly thin twigs.

Most all young Cms that are planted in Zone 6b/7a, especially the thinner trunked and twigged ones like Acoma, can suffer a large percentage of winter kill. If that has happened to your Acoma, simply prune away all the dry and brittle trunks and twiggy branches. Follow that by fertilizing it and keeping it properly watered.

If you experienced droughts over the last two years, your Acoma CM could have experienced problems which slowed down its rooting establishment. If that was the problem; then it may take another year for its roots to establish well enough for it to bloom, and your Acoma would benefit from being fertilized with the non-burning and slow release form of Osmokote.

If none of the above mentioned problems occurred, consider the lighting which your Acoma receives. If you determine that your Acoma receives lots of shade from buildings or nearby larger shrubs and trees that can not be pruned back to provide more light; then after the following winter and just prior to your Acoma breaking dormancy, transplant it to a location where it will receive more light.

If none of the above mentioned problems seem to have or currently be affecting your Acoma, then maybe it just needs to experience a little more summer heat and lighting to bloom. I know that the Acoma is reported to begin blooming in July, but if during this year's spring and early Summer there has occured more daily percentages of overcast skies during enough rainy periods to delay your Acoma's bloom bud set; you may just simply need to be patient a little longer. This Cm could. in fact, simply be just finishing up its spring/summer branch new growth, and be on the verge of about to set flower buds right now. I know this last consideration is the case with my young Tuscarora CMs, which should normally have begun blooming before now.

That's all good advice, but none of those apply to my Acoma ( except the spring freeze - but all my other crepes went thru that, too, and are blooming great) which is why I'm so puzzled. I'll try the Osmocote, though & see what happens.

The Easter freeze plus any thin new growth from the previous growing season has spelled out a problem for lots of our local CMS. Earlier in the spring many of them that had about one inch thick trunks even had to be pruned all the way down to almost ground level. In those situations, the CMs reprouted and have regrown to a point where they are now able to be pruned back again, leaving the strongest growing main leader trunks to continue growing and hardening off.

Those newly grown trunks are now only about a quarter of an inch thick, and we are very concerned for their need to at least double in thickness and hardened off again so they will have a chance for survival this coming winter. For that reason we do not plan on dead heading the spent flowers to force new growth and more freqent than normal reblooming.

If your Acoma CM is not struggling as much as what I just described has happened to many of our locally Grown CMs, then it must be a very good CM Cultivar. It is good that you are going to fertilize it. While you are doing that make certain that the root flare of your Acoma is just at ground level, and that any mulch, which may be covering the rootball, is pulled back at least 4 inches away from the rootflare.

If you can not find the root flare when you pull back a little bit of the soil around the trunks of you CM, that could be indicating, you CM may now be situated too deeply into the soil. If that is the case continue removing the soil until you do find the root flare (that topmost place where the roots begin to grow out of the trunk) and slightly taper the soil. Then cover the entire planting bed with mulch, but like mentioned above, Keep the mulch at least 4 inches away from the trunk.

When you reported that your Acoma has grown some, did you mean that you have seen new growth this spring and early summer? Is it fully leafed out?

Have you avoided doing the "crape myrtle murder" pruning on it, except where the trunks and branches may have frozen already from winter and Easter freeze kill?

If your Acoma has been "CM murder" pruned it could take even longer for your CM to recover, just like it slowes the CM down from forming the bloom buds, if you have not pruned back, to the first set of three leaves, the freeze killed dead ends of the branches.

At any rate do not give up on your Acoma just yet. The trunk, foliage, and root developing that it has been and is currently doing should make it a much more resiliant shrub or small tree, once it finally does begin to put forth large amounts of its energy for blooming.

I finally was able to go out and check how deep I planted the roots. When I pulled away the mulch, I discovered a !/2" thick root flaring out 1/2" above the soil line!! So I added some topsoil (putting slow-release fert. underneath) to cover the root and moved the mulch 4" from trunk.
What's strange is that the plant had no winter kill (except an inch or two in a few tips) and I never pruned it like all my others because I want this to be a bush - not a tree.
Thanx so much for taking the time to respond & all the great tips.

If only the tips were winter killed and the root flare next to the trunk is not planted too deeply, that confirms to me that your shrub crape is a very slow grower. Now that you have cut of the dead tips the shrub may shortly begin to put on bloom buds if it has been able to produce any new growth.

I have a friend who has a 13 feet tall three trunked Tuscarora Crape Myrtile that displayed about 6 inches of winter will on its upright growing branch ends. He never cut them off, and because of that his tree is has not set bloom buds yet either. In years past his tree had begun blooming sometime in the mid to last weeks of June.

We have had plenty of moisture this spring, and I do not see any reason, other that we have had a lot more cloudy days and the fact that he did not prune out the dead parts of the branches, as to why his is taking so long to bloom.

Since your shrub is such a slow grower, it too could have been slowed down by your not earlier removing the dead tips.