I got tired. I admit it. I was transplanting four 9-foot Crepe Myrtles and knew I should have quit for the day. However, my neighbors sold their house and I wanted to complete this visual-fence-barrier before my new neighbors moved in. So, I dug at the final crepe myrtle and hit a cable wire. On the other side, I hit solid rock. There was a fence blocking easy shovel motion. It was my mission to FINISH, so I dug out that Crepe Myrtle in any way I could, even using loppers to chop the connecting roots. Ridiculous? Yup- Oh well! (haha)

I ended up with my trophy- a 9 foot tall Crepe Myrtle with less than 3 inches of roots, dry and bare. I carried it to the new location and realized my extreme stupidity when I dug a hole and there was not even enough root-ball to hold the tree in place! It kept falling over. I dribbled a hose overtop and staked the tree into place with string. I kept a slow waterhose on it for the next week while we received a surprise heat wave of near-100 degrees. Could things get worse?

Over a period of two weeks I watched as the tree shriveled, dropped leaves, turned into a dead stick. Even though the other trees were happy, I felt ridiculous. It was in the FRONT of all the others, in a prime location, next to my driveway. I snapped a couple of branches and saw green, so I considered trying to root a new tree but seeing the condition of the shriveled bark, I didn't hold out much hope. The only reason I did not pull out the tree and drag it to the street is that I kept having time conflicts. Almost 2 more weeks passed.

Yesterday I got out of my car and noticed tiny green leaves appearing! It's ALIVE! I'm so happy I could burst and am now of course reminding myself how easy crepe myrtles are. Funny how even our biggest mistakes can work out well!

I'm sharing this story because some of you are nervous about moving crepe myrtles. I found them all quite easy, even the one I literally just ripped out of the dirt and plugged back in!