Natches Crepe myrtles usually grow fast when they are young and are one of the potentially tallest growing cultivars of CMs. Yours likely get the right amount of water they like during their spring growth flush, and the nitrogen issue will definately compound that fast growth issue. The tree that is not blooming could be getting less direct sun rays. Is there a tall tree or some other structure that is out of the shot, but which is tall enough to cast signifcant hours of shade on that CM. If so that could be another reason you CM is not blooming yet, even though the Natches on the other end of the house has begun to bloom. Personally if I wanted a corner accent CMs I would not have chosen the Natches cultivar. Especially considering that those multi trunks have the potential to get overly thick and the canopy they each produce can end up being more massive than one would think they might want spreading so close to the corner of house. Guess to avoid such issues, either late winter or very early next spring, you could do corrective pruning that transforms your Cms to single trunk trees. but whether or not you choose to do that you will find the you also will need to yearly raise each tree's canopy, until the yearly pruning time arrives when your trees are tall enough that their canopies are higher than your roof line and are no longer close enough to hang down on and brush against your house shingles.

I recommend waiting until about a month before the CM breaks dormancy. CMs are very tough, though, so if you want to dig it up now it will probably be fine.

Definitely a seed head (or whatever they call it, it won't bloom again). And you can remove it and maybe get a second bloom for the summer but you don't have to. I have some crepes that are really tall and I can't get all the seed heads off the very top and it doesn't seem to hurt anything in the long run. It is very much an aesthetic choice. I'm no expert but I find that the ones that are about to flower will be pure and bright green and smaller than the ones that are finished. They are my favorite trees too! I think I have 9 or ten of them. :) Melissa This post was edited by gardencpa on Sun, Jul 14, 13 at 15:26

I agree that a good ripout is essential, and even though you remove all the root you can, you might fight suckers regrowing from any roots you missed, and you may fight them for years. Some people have luck with leaving several inches of stump in the ground and drilling holes in the stump and pouring brush killer into the holes and, at the same time, using a foam paintbrush to paint the brushkiller onto the stump. The idea is to thoroughly kill any roots attached to the stump. Still, you ultimately have to remove the stump or the crape myrtles come back. As for what kind of bulbs (or corms, tubers, rhizomes, etc.) you can plant in fall for spring blooms, there are many. The most commonly planted ones probably are tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, grape hyacinths and crocus. Just remember that in the fall, you plant spring flowering bulbs. Then, in mid- through late-spring you plant bulbs, tubers, corms, rhizomes, etc. that will bloom in summer and fall. That group includes dahlias, gladiolus, cannas and caladiums. You're in a slightly colder area that I am, so hopefully someone who is in your part of the state can tell you what can be planted now that will stay green throughout the winter. Here in far southcentral Oklahoma, plants in the category include pansies, violas, snapdragons and dianthus. For the long term, the plants that grow best for me in west-facing beds in the summer are those that really love heat. Salvias and catmint are two I use a lot in the west facing beds, and verbena bonariensis (a tall verbena with very thin stems) and zinnias are virtually foolproof, even in clay. One of the toughest plants I grow is the Laura Bush petunia. I have them in purple and in shades of pink, but understand they now have a seed blend with white ones in it. The Laura Bush petunias did better than almost anything else in 2011, blooming almost every month of the year. I have found them to be both very heat-tolerant and very cold-tolerant. They have smaller flowers than the hybrid petunias we're all familiar with. The flowers that tolerated the heat best, blooming all summer with no irrigation whatsoever (they are 300' from the water faucet and I am not going to carry water to them or drag a hose that far) were the globe amaranth, aka gomphrena. They struggled a bit in August when temps were hitting 112-115 day after day, but at that point they'd only had about 12 or 13" of rain for the whole year. The globe amaranth I have now is called 'Strawberry Fields' and it has red flowers. It reseeds well and comes back every year here. I've also grown them in various shades of purple and whitish-purple in a different area of the landscape. Dawn