Thanks tophers, I'll check them out. I really appreciate the feedback!

I live in Vancouver WA and have become a Crape Myrtle fanatic. I now even have a spreadsheet where I tally how many Crape Myrtles I have, it is something like 71. Over half are in pots and I may be hard pressed to find places to plant them but we shall see.

Where to buy Crape Myrtles. Well, I have gotten them from probably about 4-5 places.

1). The exciting new Magic family ones you can get very inexpensively by mail order from evergreenplantnursery.com. They are small but healthy. I have bought 40-50 from them this summer and planted them in 3-5 gallon pots with dirt from my yard. I found that small Crape Myrtles can suffer major dieback to the small diameter branches, so I am going to keep them in my garage from Nov-Feb so they don't get much below freezing. I will do this for 1-2 winters and then plant them in the yard for good either spring of 2015 or spring of 2016. Once they are big enough they should grow vigorously every year even though the little branches on the tips may die back.

Note that they only sell these during summer. They kept saying "NOT AVAILABLE DURING DORMANT SEASON" and then finally around July or so you could order them and I must have done about 7-8 orders of 3-7 plants over the next couple months.

Last fall I got 4 Midnight Magics from soonerplantfarm.com. I didn't know then that you could get this plant a lot cheaper from evergreenplantnursery. I put these in the ground. They died back all the way to the ground over winter. But then this summer they grew back, bigger than they were when I first got them. And one of them had some decent blooms. The Midnight Magics I bought from evergreenplantnursery are small and I am growing them in pots for a couple years before I plant them outside.

I even got a few little flowers in Aug/Sept on one or two of the little Midnight Magics I bought in July and planted in large pots. Once they get bigger I believe these are going to bloom well.

2). Al's Garden Center. Last fall I bought 9 Purple Magics at Al's and they were only about $10 each. This year they didn't have any of those, perhaps they are now on patent and they would have to pay royalties. But the ones I planted last fall flowered BEAUTIFULLY this August/Sept. You can get this plant from evergreenplantnursery. (albeit small ones, so I recommend starting them in large pots first before planting in the yard)

Al's has lots of the more traditional varieties, though. Tuscaroras, Arapahos, Tontos, Catawbas, etc. They have small inexpensive ones around $10 or big ones at much higher prices.

I got a few Monrovia Catawbas at Tsugawa Nursery. I planted them last summer. They didn't bloom this summer. I think there's a decent chance they will bloom well if I give them another year or two. If I knew where to get Crape Myrtles as well now as I did then I would not buy the large expensive Monrovia ones at $35-45 but rather the inexpensive gallon ones grown by Al's Garden Center...

Picture of my best purple magic.

Picture of one of my Tuscaroras. (the other's didn't bloom this year but I believe they will bloom very nicely once they are a few years old).

Last but not least: Midnight Magic.

{{!gwi}}

Midnight magic, not sure why picture didn't display on the last post.

I forgot to mention. One place I bought a few CMs was Whitman Farms just west of Salem. They mainly do mail order but I called and dropped in on Lucile who runs the nursery. I was going to get some Arapahos from her but then it turned out she didn't have any after all. But she had three gorgeous Tuscaroras next to her house, and she said they are one she has found to be a reliable bloomer in this region. If you are in Southern Oregon probably it is hot enough there that most any Crape Myrtle will bloom well. The Tuscarora of mine I had the picture of is one I bought from her.

Or possibly this one was my best purple magic.

They are extremely overused down South due to their color and heat durability.

But their main weakness is that they have weak, but heavy water-logged wood that tends to heart rot. Especially since they are multitrunked, which tends to pool water and debris at their base and facilitate ants moving in.. If you get a variety that grows 30' tall or more, they can then be prone to toppling over in a windy storm.

For this reason, I would only recommend getting ornamental dwarf or semi-dwarf CM varieties.

If you want a heat-tolerant shade tree, frankly I would recommend something else.. Maybe an American/Oriental/Texas Persimmon, Loquat, Oriental Raisin Tree, Pecan Tree, 'Lucretia Hamilton' Desert Willow, Pomegranate or Goldenball Lead Tree? Or some combination thereof..

This post was edited by blakrab on Fri, Oct 10, 14 at 14:13

I have never heard of or seen any crape myrtle topple over or even that they have week wood.
Where did you get that information.
We have many many many beautiful ones here in arkansas.

Well, CMs don't get as vulnerable until they get much larger - and 30' tall specimens are not as common yet.. It's probably similar to how people didn't realize how prone Callery Pear trees were to storm breakage until enough specimens had matured..

I think it's a combination of dense foliage causing high drag in locations unsheltered from wind and heavy wood or multitrunked roots prone to rotting or insect damage?

One fell nearby recently and the tree remover said CMs were more prone to toppling due to the reasons I had cited. Granted, 1 guy may not be a reliable source, but it may be something to consider..

If you do get CMs, I would probably stick to smaller varieties or place them in somewhat wind-sheltered locations.

And I also wonder if this might be why municipalities top them off and commit Crepe Murder?

This post was edited by blakrab on Fri, Oct 10, 14 at 13:27

"Posted by needinfo001 none (My Page) on
Fri, Oct 10, 14 at 9:05

I have never heard of or seen any crape myrtle topple over or even that they have week wood.
Where did you get that information.
We have many many many beautiful ones here in arkansas."

The one in the picture looks like it might have been planted from a root bound container grown plant.

Driving down the entire Eastern shore as I have several times, one is struck by the "Lagerstroemia gradient" haha. The fact huge tree-like ones are rare up around the canal (though not non-existant) but by the time you're in Cape Charles, very common. Well on the Cape and around the Hampton Roads and Virginia Beach, there are so many old crape myrtles it's obvious they are pretty impervious to all of the hurricanes and major thunderstorms that pass through the area.

(BTW this is with the old standard pink clone. The new National Arboretum clones really are zn 6 hardy and will eventually mean this gradient is no longer as noticeable. I've seen when I was driving around Lancaster County that I saw a few old standard ones that were killed back by -5-0F temps this winter, but the new cultivars remained arborescent even up there. As to be expected though, they are more commonly seen in newer suburban tract housing landscapes and not in the older sections of towns like Gap, Parkesburg, etc.)

I will say that...along the lines of what blakrab posted...the really old 20+ foot ones in SE VA are usually single trunked, not big clusters of multiple trunks. But it's not the overall plant shape that's the problem, it is the debris and water collection issue. Because some of the L. faurieis in the south have gotten huge and quite wide, but they only have a single, fat trunk.

Or not...
of course this species grows faster and might be stronger wooded. But most of the new hybrids involve it in their ancestry.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://jcra.ncsu.edu/resources/photographs/plants-results.php?serial=103054

I'm responding to blakrab's comments. I just don't see the damage that he is talking about. CM's are popular because they are so trouble free and no way comparable to Bradford Pears.
Pictured here is 'Tuskegee' Look at the root system, appears well-anchored to me.
{{gwi:434662}}

Maybe try Ashland Nursery