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Louisiana & Mississippi

leafdrop on crepe myrtles! Help!

18 years ago

I have just moved to New Iberia,LA and the yard has been severely neglected. The ONLY plants are 4 large crepe myrtles-2 pink and 2 red on the east side of the house (front yard). Thank goodness they have not been butchered too badly. We have had little rain in the last 2 months-the leaves are yellow and dropping like mad-do I fertilize? water? (which I have been doing) or what-the leaf drop is creating a huge mess as they blow into the carport. I am an avid gardener, but have been gardening in NW FLorida for 30 years. I plan on affliating with the Lafayette Master Gardener group as soon as I get unburied with the unpacking and remodeling! Any advice on the crepe myrtles would be most welcome! Thanks

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Comments (5)

lisa455
18 years ago
Mine are doing this as well as are many around town. I checked for sooty mold aphids and all the usual problems on mine and none exist. As you probably know, they grow on the side of roads in public plantings with no care. I'm not sure, but I don't think the leave drop will harm the trees permanently. Absent some disease on your tree, I think they are just early losing their leaves. We had a really weird spring - record low temperatures for several weeks (ten degrees below average) followed by record heat (ten degrees above average) for several weeks and no rain. I have had a lot of plants off schedule because of this. (My squash plants planted in early march just started producing fruit and the mexican petunias and perennial hibiscus were a month late starting to bloom.) I also have noticed it is significantly cooler at night than normal for August and the daytime highs many days have been more like September weather.
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lisa455
18 years ago
You might want to check out Cercospora lythracearum - It is a fungus that causes the leaves to turn yellow and drop. I might investigate this as well.
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Let me offer my experience with crapemyrtle. I have four plants and three varities in a regional area that often gets long dry spells. My soil is heavy clay. During drought I water my crapemyrtles slowly but HEAVILY, to the point of runoff once per week. They love it, grow and bloom their tails off. However, on this regimen, if I forget for a week their bloom drops off greatly, so constancy is important. I go a week between soakings so as to let the heavy soil open and breathe / oxygenate before the next watering. Works for me. If you are in loamy or sandy soil this probably would not work for you, twice a week might work, especially if you provide a good 3" of mulch. To me, the smaller amount of water you can give to provide the maximum bloom is the right answer. The more you can make the plant "reach" the stronger it becomes over time. hortster
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Take a nice, sharp, clean pair of clippers and clip off a branch and look at the cross section. Is there a thin thin layer of green just inside the bark? That would indicate the tree is still alive and there is still hope. Is the branch as brittle as a potato chip? RIP. Repeated stress and the need to releaf out multiple times after severe weather could have weakened them to the point of death. How big are the pots they are in? Most trees are not happy in a pot for very long. They look to be exposed to reflected dry heat from light colored stucco, which will also be stressful and difficult to handle. If you need shade on your patio, an umbrella or shade sail might be a more reliable choice. The gardening thing is merely a matter of practice, observation, and trial-and-error. If you have not killed plants, you are not a gardener.
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Well, close to 'Pluto Time' here (astronomical-minded gardeners can Google that one for a kick!), but I just looked at the 'Zuni' again. Definitely, I would NOT call it purple, it's a RICH, saturated MAGENTA (though I see why you say that based on the picture). Catawba is purple, there's a difference. I'm not color blind but the funny thing is, when I went out this morning I intended to get a pale lavender Crape, got (another) pale pink one by mistake, might have been the heat, (though the new pink one is different from the 'Hopi' I have as it has white in it as well as pink; then of course, I went back for the pale, silvery lavender (having had to confirm this by asking a female shopper). LOL! Our favorite (so far) is the 'HOPI' hands down (which is, I believe classified as an 'Intermediate'..., not a dwarf by any means). Not sure how 'Zuni' compares with 'Hopi' (other than floral color). Wait till you see the Dynamites..., those are just coming into flower but will bloom into October. Will try to get another shot of the Zuni tomorrow.
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Comments (9)
A number of things could cause something like this. Graft problems, vascular diseases, winter damage, and herbicide damage are among the possibilities. More information could narrow these down. It's a little unusual (at least here in the US) for crApe myrtles to be grafted. There are some out there, but it's far less common. In all cases that I know of, crafted crApe myrtles are grafted onto standards (single trunks). You may know that your plant is grafted, but, if your not sure, the likelihood is that it isn't. Winter damage is another possibility that you may be able to eliminate. If your crApe myrtle leafed out like normal, early in the season, but then lost all it's leaves, it probably isn't a winter damage issue. If, however, your crApe never leafed out properly early last year, winter damage should be considered. Herbicide damage would likely have symptoms that I don't really see in your picture, but, then again, it could still be a possibility if you've applied herbicides near the plant. I can even think of some other possibilities, but they are less likely and would probably have clues you would have noticed. To sum it up, it's just impossible to know what has happened without more information about your plant and it's history.
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maggieFL
Original Author
18 years ago
Ah! Mexican petunias!! I left hundreds of them in my old yard! Gave so many away as they run like mad. I hope that I can find some here! This yard is huge but absolutely nothing but grass, so I can hardly wait for fall to come so I can start making beds! I'll look up that fugus you mentioned. Thanks
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lisa455
18 years ago
I could send you some seeds of the pink tall and purple tall variety if you email me to remind me. I think you will find that you can grow almost everything you could in Florida zone 8. I live in Thibodaux about an hour and a half east from you and about ten miles from the southern line of zone 8. I get into the low twenties seven or eight nights a year. They biggest challenge for me is that the soil ph is alkaline which makes azaleas, camellias and gardenias difficult and that some plants require decent drainage which requires raised beds. You are very close to Stokes Tropicals which has a nice nursery in Jeanerette. Also, there are a number of daylily breeders in Abbeville with farms and they have a daylily festival every year.
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Pterostyrax
18 years ago
Lisa has it right. Your trees are dropping leaves due to the leaf spot fungus. Nothing you can do now. You can do some preventative spray next year, but the fungal disease won't seriously harm your crepe myrtles. They just start to look funky in late summer, like a lot of other plants after 3 weeks of no rain and mid 90 temperatures.
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