Could it be that pink and white cuttings were put in the same pot?

Yes especially if you purchased a Crepe Myrtle with multiple trunks already growing out of the pot. Or the nursery growing these white blooming crepe myrtles could have encountered pink blooming CMs seeds dropping into the root ball of the white blooming CMs.

Most CM seeds are not very viable, but with the fertile nursery conditons where your white blooming CMS could have been grown, there is a much better chance for at least a few of those pink blooming Cm's seeds to have germinated if the pink blooming sources were not sterile.

I know my neighbor's CM dropped some seeds in my planting bed, and it took about 5 years, but one of her CMs seeds did germinate. I just recently discovered that rogue CM, so now I do have a wild CM that must have been growing for a few years unnoticed amid some of my shade loving ground cover in that bed. Only problem is that it sprouted under the shade of one of my Shumard oak trees, and will need to be moved. Especially since that part of the planting bed does not receive the kind of light exposure that CMs need for producing a good bloom coverage.

When you say pink, just how pink? Some varieties can range between off white and slightly pink, depending on conditions. Also, is the part that is blooming pink on separate trunks from the part that is blooming white?

BTW, crApe myrtle is the more accepted spelling. Most knowledgeable/reliable sources spell crape with an "a". The Crape Myrtle Society, almost all university and educational sources, as well as almost all botanical gardens and arboretums spell it with an "a". The "e"-spelling is generally from less-reliable/less-informed sources.

It was a very small baby at the time of purchase. Very shrublike and tiny... here is a pic from 2007. He is all the way at the end of the fence on the left. Last one in the bed. He bloomed white that year, all over! (please forgive the horrid landscaping. We had an IDIOT landscaper. This is what I'm trying to fix!)
{{gwi:410290}}

It might be from a separate trunk, but its a mature trunk. At least as mature as the rest of the tree... So I thought I would ahve seen it do this last year. I wish i had found this forum while it was actively showing off the color. Its not as abvious now. The pink was pretty obviously pink, but not a dark pink. I will try to isolate the branch or branches that threw pink this year. In the mean time... Here are pic of the fellow from this season. Some in bloom some not, but it might help with trunk id.

NOTE>>> This first pic is taken from the back side of the tree. The color change was real obvious form the backyard and easier to photograph w/o the sun washing it out.
{{gwi:410292}}

{{gwi:410294}}
{{gwi:410296}}

{{gwi:410298}}

Looking at the pics it could be the whole trunk closest to end of the bed...

If it is the end trunk what do I do? Try to separate him out and move him elsewhere. I hate to just hack the tree up. But I would like to just have him all white. If I could keep the pink section viable and plant him someplace else I would do it. Is this possible? When would be the best time of year to perform surgery, so to speak, if I choose to?

Thank you!

You can't just divide up the stems like that on these. They're all the same plant. Don't even try it, you'll lose it.

I don't have an answer on why the tree is producing different colored blooms and I'd like to find out the answer myself. I know these aren't grafted and I know some do this but I don't know why or how since they appear to be the same plant.

Ok Gardeningrandma, I won't mess with him. I did not want to if there was a chance of doing more harm then good.

Does anyone know... could soil affect the color? Like a Hydrangea? Cause that part of the tree is on the border between the neighbor and I. She has different grass (zoyshia) and I think she has a company come in and treat her yard. If the root for that trunk have gone over in her yard, might a different PH be affecting the color?

Yep, that color difference is considerable. It's definitely not from the exposure/conditions difference I had mentioned earlier. It may be, as someone mentioned above, two separate plants planted together when you bought them. It also appears to me that the foliage is slightly different (see picture 2). You could cut out the pink branches and only allow the white trunks to grow. It may take persistence, as the pink plant will keep trying to send up shoots for at least a year or two.

I'm not necessarily recommending this, but you might also be able to yank the pink trunks out, root and all (yes I see some eyes rolling). It might stress the white blooming plant, but it's something I might consider anyway.

Oops, I didn't see the part about your neighbor's yard...

I don't think that could cause the difference we're seeing. Anything's possible, but I doubt it for various reasons.

Why not just cut the unwanted stems?

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.

Well I went out and took a good look. The pink is all contained on a separate trunk. The trunk is well established and about 2 inches thick. I think I'm gonna leave it alone. It would totally throw off the balance of the tree if I cut it off. I also noticed the white trunks have a cinnamon color in patches on them and the pink does not.

The branch my hand is on is the pink one
{{gwi:410299}}

{{gwi:410300}}

{{gwi:410301}}

Allrighty it could be that in an attempt to make a tree have more than one stem, nurseries will often stick more than one tree in a pot. Good for them, bad for you. That would explain the different color.

I have a crape myrtle that I got from a new tiny trunk I cut off of my uncle's crape mrytle a few years ago. It had pink blooms. Last year it bloomed it's usual pink blooms, but also started booming white blooms. Now, it is doing the same this year. I also have a white "natchez" crape myrtle in my yard. One idea that I have is that bees cross pollinated the two and that is what caused the pink one to start having white blooms with the pink. The same thing happened to my knock out rose bushes. I have red knockouts and pink knockouts. A few years ago, one of my pink knockouts started having some red blooms. It has done it every year since. So, I think it is possible that someone in your neighborhood has the tree that maybe a bee cross pollinated with yours. Another idea that I have is maybe the 2nd color that shows up in the blooms of a flowering tree or shrub, is the color of one of the parents of it.

I just wanted to say thanks for the great pics. You really made it easy for the experts to give proper advice!

MHusser,

Bees cross pollinating your plants wouldn't have anything more to do with changes in bloom color than the gravitational influence of Ganymede.

Thats a pretty crape!! To the OP, you got all that growth in 3 years? I'm hoping mine will grow like that; I planted 3 in the fall of 09' and they are taking their time growing it seems like.

wmarkw:
I went and looked back on the date stamp of the pic... summer 2007... They were slow at first, but these past 2 seasons have really grown stong...
From this april...
{{gwi:358536}}

And look the roots have some new plants forming... I want to dig up these and move them... hope they can survive it! Wonder if they are pink or white? :)

Any advice on digging up and moving them w/o hurting the parent?
{{gwi:358534}}

{{gwi:358535}}

Well seeing all this discussion on the correct spelling of crepe myrtle, my 2 cents worth is the tree is named crepe because the flowers resemble the fabric called crepe, which any seamstress knows. So that is the corrected original spelling, and the crape is a mispelling of the original.. Also depends where you live what you think it should be spelled, and in Europe where more people know what crepe is, that is the accepted spelling.